Why kill Admiral Ozzel?

[VoxRationis]

In The Empire Strikes Back, Admirel Ozzel takes the Imperial fleet out of hyperspace relatively close to Hoth, and Darth Vader strangles him (over video conferencing, no less) for this blunder, under the logic that this alerted the Rebels to the fleet and allowed them to prepare an evacuation.

However, I must disagree with this assessment. As far as we've seen in Star Wars, Imperial Star Destroyers are not very stealthy craft, but they can surprise people by dropping out of hyperspace, as indeed the Imperial fleet did in Return of the Jedi. Conversely, it would be difficult to bring an entire fleet of them to within attack range without alerting the Rebels if they were to travel at sublight, having come out of hyperspace outside of sensor range. Even if sensors exist that can track ships in hyperspace, the faster travel time would still make it easier to get the drop on the Rebels if the Empire tried to drop to sublight as late as possible.

Does anyone know some aspect of warfare in Star Wars which makes Ozzel's decision poor?

[Jayngfet]

A few things:

1: there's a difference between looking out the window and seeing a readout on a scanner. Getting a clear readout is probably difficult from farther away.

2: Star Destroyers move slowly on the scale of spacecraft. It's probable they could have gotten much closer on their own terms if the rebels didn't suddenly catch them.

3: Raising shields isn't instantaneous, it's a large machine designed to cover a planetary surface. In the time between the rebels realizing there's a threat and Raising the shields the Destroyers could have gotten into position and fired their guns.

4. The empire lives and dies on procedure. Activating sublights immediately after hyperspace jump may be a no-no. Or priming turbolasers at such a time. A destroyer has one main reactor and a dozen Key systems pulling power from it. Outlaw techs may like to reroute power from life support to shields or the like but the empire has a ton of rules in place. Which is how Han Solo escsapes Hoth: The empire dumps waste before hyperspace jumps every time. So when he sees them about to do it he knows he's in the clear.

[factotum]

However, I must disagree with this assessment. As far as we've seen in Star Wars, Imperial Star Destroyers are not very stealthy craft, but they can surprise people by dropping out of hyperspace, as indeed the Imperial fleet did in Return of the Jedi.

It has to be said that the conversation between Vader and Veers is a little confusing:

Vader: The Rebels are alerted to our presence. Admiral Ozzel came out of lightspeed too close to the system.
Veers: He felt surprise was wiser--
Vader: He is as clumsy as he is stupid. General, prepare your troops for a surface attack.

So, clearly Ozzel thought that coming out of lightspeed really close in would surprise the Rebels, and Veers thought that was a reasonable thing to do, indicating that a fleet in hyperspace cannot be sensed. I really don't know how Vader expected things to be different if they'd come out some distance away and cruised in at sublight speed--surely the Rebels would have detected them just the same and put up their force field? More to the point, if the fleet were *not* that close in, the Rebels would have had plenty of time to evacuate the base. Seems to me Ozzel did entirely the right thing and Vader was just looking for an excuse to kill him, to be honest.

[Tvtyrant]

Vader wanted them to deploy to capture the escape ships as they tried to flee. There was no reason for them to ever come within EMP range, or to assault the rebel base at all. Ozzel's plan meant the Empire was forced to immediately assault the base and hope to capture or kill as many as possible in the assault, instead of blockading the system and starving them into submission.

Basically Ozzel was assuming that the Empire wanted to reclaim Hoth, and Vader wanted the Empire to destroy the actual rebels. If Hoth was a valuable system Ozzel's plan would have been perfectly fine, but they aren't there for Hoth itself.

[McStabbington]

It has to be said that the conversation between Vader and Veers is a little confusing:

Vader: The Rebels are alerted to our presence. Admiral Ozzel came out of lightspeed too close to the system.
Veers: He felt surprise was wiser--
Vader: He is as clumsy as he is stupid. General, prepare your troops for a surface attack.

So, clearly Ozzel thought that coming out of lightspeed really close in would surprise the Rebels, and Veers thought that was a reasonable thing to do, indicating that a fleet in hyperspace cannot be sensed. I really don't know how Vader expected things to be different if they'd come out some distance away and cruised in at sublight speed--surely the Rebels would have detected them just the same and put up their force field? More to the point, if the fleet were *not* that close in, the Rebels would have had plenty of time to evacuate the base. Seems to me Ozzel did entirely the right thing and Vader was just looking for an excuse to kill him, to be honest.

The reasoning wasn't immediately obvious, but there was a sound tactical reason to think that Ozzel was just a dunderhead. Basically, the Hoth system had a ridiculously large and dense asteroid field in the outer system where there are gas giants in the Sol system. If the fleet had dropped out of light speed outside the system and moved slowly into position at sublight, it would have been incredibly difficult to distinguish the fleet from a cluster of rocks until the fleet was in orbit. But that's not what Ozzel did: he jumped close enough for their sensors to spot a cluster of blips popping into existence where there was nothing moments before, but not close enough to directly attack.

So he picked the option that got the Imperials the worst of all possible worlds.

[Snark Knight]

There's also Vader's mentality to consider. This isn't any normal mission, this is Darth Vader looking for the Skywalker pilot, his child. Anything that he saw as jeopardizing his chances of retrieving Skywalker alive would be grounds for summary execution in Vader's eyes.

[Rakaydos]

"My lord, there are thousands of uncharted instalations. It uld be smugglers, or-"
"It is them. Prep the fleet for lightspeed."

Ozzel was a pain in Vader's side long before the tactical error gave Vader a convient excuse to remove the admiral.

[hamishspence]

In the EU, Vader had been tipped off a few years before TESB, that Ozzel was possibly corrupt (Timothy Zahn's Allegiance novel) and thus was watching him closely with the intention of removing him at the least excuse.

[Ebon_Drake]

So he picked the option that got the Imperials the worst of all possible worlds.

This. There might have been sound tactics in bringing the fleet out of hyperspace really close to Hoth so they could launch a quick bombardment to take out the shield generator and ion cannon before they were online. Except Ozzel screwed that up and brought the fleet in close enough to be detected, but still far enough out that the rebels were able to power up the shield and prep their defences.

Mind you, from what I remember of Star Wars travel it might not even have been possible to get the fleet in range to hit the shield before it could be raised. IIRC hyperdrives have built-in safety features to force the ship to come out of hyperspace sufficiently far enough out to prevent it coming in too close to avoid collision with planets/stars/black holes etc*. Either way, Vader called it right: Ozzel was either stupid for not knowing that, or he was clumsy because it was possible to do but he screwed it up.


* Or at least, they did until TFA. Though I suppose if any ship is going to be customised to remove that safety feature, it'd be the Falcon.

[Dienekes]

Ok just a reminder: Brackett, Kasdan, and Lucas are not military experts.

The point of the exchange was to show how ruthless and evil Vader is and give some vague reason why the rebels have a chance to escape despite the overwhelming power of the empire. So they got the character Ozzel previous establish him and Vader as being antagonistic (specifically him being wrong at least once before) and have Vader give some reason for him being incompetent.

I don't think the whole thing was specifically meant to be analyzed tactically since we are never given an explanation for how shields, lightspeed, and space lasers work in the movie.

[Morty]

Ok just a reminder: Brackett, Kasdan, and Lucas are not military experts.

The point of the exchange was to show how ruthless and evil Vader is and give some vague reason why the rebels have a chance to escape despite the overwhelming power of the empire. So they got the character Ozzel previous establish him and Vader as being antagonistic (specifically him being wrong at least once before) and have Vader give some reason for him being incompetent.

I don't think the whole thing was specifically meant to be analyzed tactically since we are never given an explanation for how shields, lightspeed, and space lasers work in the movie.

I agree that it all comes down to that. There's not much point in over-analysing it.

[Professor Gnoll]

Ok just a reminder: Brackett, Kasdan, and Lucas are not military experts.

The point of the exchange was to show how ruthless and evil Vader is and give some vague reason why the rebels have a chance to escape despite the overwhelming power of the empire. So they got the character Ozzel previous establish him and Vader as being antagonistic (specifically him being wrong at least once before) and have Vader give some reason for him being incompetent.

I don't think the whole thing was specifically meant to be analyzed tactically since we are never given an explanation for how shields, lightspeed, and space lasers work in the movie.
Yes, but trying to figure out in-universe reasons is fun. Obviously the explanation for 90% of things that don't make sense is going to be 'it's a movie', but that's not particularly interesting, and doesn't add to the experience. So why no over-analyse?

[Cikomyr]

The Imperials could have done a more effective surprise strike with TIE Bombers deployed from afar.

Add the above suggestion that the Fleet could have been better deployed to intercept fleeing crafts.

So Ozzel kind of failed on multiple level. He engaged the enemy without leverage the initiative as an advantage to cripple them sufficiently that it offset the missing proper preparation being made.

Edit: if you wonder how the Imps could have done a surprise strike without being detected, remember Rieekans' line about having lots of difficulty to detect incoming crafts because of the meteoric activity.

[Dienekes]

Yes, but trying to figure out in-universe reasons is fun. Obviously the explanation for 90% of things that don't make sense is going to be 'it's a movie', but that's not particularly interesting, and doesn't add to the experience. So why no over-analyse?

Well mostly because as presented in the film you either take Vader at his word that Ozzel was as clumsy as he was stupid or you don't.

You need to bring in information that was never in the movie written by people either to prove or disprove Vader depending on what said writer wanted and may be disproved in later movie canon (example the whole sending a distant invasion force to cut off the enemy escape path doesn't work once we've seen Han jump straight to lightspeed while still inside another ship in TFA).

It's a harmless activity and all. If you enjoy it go for it. But I hedge against conclusions that end up twisting the narrative far out from what was the original intention.

[KillingAScarab]

Yes, but trying to figure out in-universe reasons is fun. Obviously the explanation for 90% of things that don't make sense is going to be 'it's a movie', but that's not particularly interesting, and doesn't add to the experience. So why no over-analyse?I agree with this. Also, that is a fine location you have there, Professor Gnoll. :smallbiggrin:


The reasoning wasn't immediately obvious, but there was a sound tactical reason to think that Ozzel was just a dunderhead. Basically, the Hoth system had a ridiculously large and dense asteroid field in the outer system where there are gas giants in the Sol system. If the fleet had dropped out of light speed outside the system and moved slowly into position at sublight, it would have been incredibly difficult to distinguish the fleet from a cluster of rocks until the fleet was in orbit. But that's not what Ozzel did: he jumped close enough for their sensors to spot a cluster of blips popping into existence where there was nothing moments before, but not close enough to directly attack.

So he picked the option that got the Imperials the worst of all possible worlds.Ignoring use of terrain by someone in as high a position as Ozzel is a good point. I think it is also possible that the act of dropping out of hyperspace could result in electromagnetic radiation, considerably more for a larger ship. When four or five capital ships create such a beacon, it is probably unmistakably detectable as a fleet rather than a natural phenomenon before you get the macrobinoculars (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Macrobinoculars/Legends) out. In Return of the Jedi the Rebellion didn't come out of lightspeed immediately beside the second Death Star, they had enough of an approach to it to realize the shield was still up. The battle was visible from the Emperor's throne room and it was fairly far from there.


There's also Vader's mentality to consider. This isn't any normal mission, this is Darth Vader looking for the Skywalker pilot, his child. Anything that he saw as jeopardizing his chances of retrieving Skywalker alive would be grounds for summary execution in Vader's eyes.Darth Vader and the Emperor have the conversation about the son of Skywalker later, when the Executor is in an asteroid field and the fleet is searching for the Millenium Falcon. I know there are new comic books which are considered canon, but I haven't read them and so I don't know if they revealed Luke's heritage early to Darth Vader.

[Nerd-o-rama]

They do, actually. It's a big moment in the ongoing Darth Vader comic. Boba Fett himself gets the information, as a newcanon explanation for why Vader implies that they've worked together before in ESB.

[Crow]

Edit: if you wonder how the Imps could have done a surprise strike without being detected, remember Rieekans' line about having lots of difficulty to detect incoming crafts because of the meteoric activity.

Yes. Thank you.

[Snark Knight]

I agree with this. Also, that is a fine location you have there, Professor Gnoll. :smallbiggrin:

Ignoring use of terrain by someone in as high a position as Ozzel is a good point. I think it is also possible that the act of dropping out of hyperspace could result in electromagnetic radiation, considerably more for a larger ship. When four or five capital ships create such a beacon, it is probably unmistakably detectable as a fleet rather than a natural phenomenon before you get the macrobinoculars (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Macrobinoculars/Legends) out. In Return of the Jedi the Rebellion didn't come out of lightspeed immediately beside the second Death Star, they had enough of an approach to it to realize the shield was still up. The battle was visible from the Emperor's throne room and it was fairly far from there.

Darth Vader and the Emperor have the conversation about the son of Skywalker later, when the Executor is in an asteroid field and the fleet is searching for the Millenium Falcon. I know there are new comic books which are considered canon, but I haven't read them and so I don't know if they revealed Luke's heritage early to Darth Vader.

In the opening crawl, it says that Vader is obsessed with finding Skywalker, rignt? I figured that, with the big reveal later in the movie, it makes it clear that Vader was looking for Skywalker, who he must have known was his son, as he says later.

[hamishspence]

In the opening crawl, it says that Vader is obsessed with finding Skywalker, rignt? I figured that, with the big reveal later in the movie, it makes it clear that Vader was looking for Skywalker, who he must have known was his son, as he says later.

After ROTS, TESB was rereleased with a few changes (besides the "ordinary" Special Edition ones - one of which was the Emperor and Vader's conversation being redone with Ian McDiarmid (new lines underlined):


"We have a new enemy. The young Rebel who destroyed the Death Star. I have no doubt that this boy is the offspring of Anakin Skywalker"
"How is that possible?"
"Search your feelings, Lord Vader. You will know it to be true. He could destroy us."


The EU then released a tie-in (The Rise & Fall Of Darth Vader) which portrayed Vader as not being certain that Luke is his son, until that moment - having entertained the possibility and then rejected it ("I killed Padme. The baby died with her") and trying to find some other rationale for who the kid was - but still being keen to find him and find out his origins.


The newcanon's taken a different take - more like in pre-prequel EU material such as the Vader's Quest comic - with Vader finding out early and reacting with great rage as a result.

[TheThan]

Vader was rather notorious for murdering his officers when they didn’t follow his instructions precisely, when they failed or when he was simply really mad. This is exactly the case with Admiral Ozzel; he was killed for what Vader felt was incompetence. It’s pretty obvious from his actions; he killed admiral Ozzel for the colossally screwed up approach to Hoth; he killed Captain Needa for not capturing the Millennium Falcon when he was lead to believe they had (remember the line Piet delivers, “my lord, we have them!”.); or had them cornered in such a way that escape was impossible.
Just listen (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aV2DLkDPwM8) to how Vader talks to Ozzel in the actual scene. He’s barely holding it together.

I absolutely hate the idea that Ozzel was a spy trying to cover for the rebels and alert them early. It just ruins the nature of the narrative being told and changes Vader’s character.

[Cikomyr]

Vader was rather notorious for murdering his officers when they didn’t follow his instructions precisely, when they failed or when he was simply really mad. This is exactly the case with Admiral Ozzel; he was killed for what Vader felt was incompetence. It’s pretty obvious from his actions; he killed admiral Ozzel for the colossally screwed up approach to Hoth; he killed Captain Needa for not capturing the Millennium Falcon when he was lead to believe they had (remember the line Piet delivers, “my lord, we have them!”.); or had them cornered in such a way that escape was impossible.
Just listen (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aV2DLkDPwM8) to how Vader talks to Ozzel in the actual scene. He’s barely holding it together.

I absolutely hate the idea that Ozzel was a spy trying to cover for the rebels and alert them early. It just ruins the nature of the narrative being told and changes Vader’s character.

I think the question was more about: what did Ozzel do wrong in his manoeuver? Was there an alternative?

[Darth Ultron]

Well, I'm not ''expanded universe'' Star Wars expert, but:

So, first off, I'd think the Rebel Base was on ''passive detection only''. That would be way too much of a give away that something was ''there''. Even more so if on Monday there was nothing but on Tuesday is was suddenly there. The way to stay hidden in space (and on Earth too) is go dark: no lights, no radio transmissions, no radar, and such.

Though being on ''passive detection'' is a two way street as you can't detect incoming ships too....unless they are very close or they make lots of ''static''.

So a Star Destroyer could jump in from light speed outside the system and curse in at sublight and would be hard to detect using only passive means....and it would be even harder in the ship went in under ''silent running''.

But when the fleet pops in like right next to the planet, well that is easy to detect. Not to mention the scans of the planet too.

And keep in mind space is big...like really, really big. You could hide of fleet no problem. And it would be very possible to slowly ''sneak up on the planet'' and send down some drop ships...and find the base and attack it by pure surprise. Maybe what Vader had in mind.

Heck if the empire had just one stealth snow tie speeder fighter it could have come in low and blew up the power generators by complete surprise....

[Drascin]

I think the question was more about: what did Ozzel do wrong in his manoeuver? Was there an alternative?

Well, even just from the movie's text, it's not hard to make some guesses.

Vader says "The rebels are alert to our plesence. Admiral Ozzel came in from hyperspace too close to the system". From this, it's not hard to deduce that ships coming from hyperspace must create some kind of easily detected pulse, and that apparently approaching from further away out of hyperspace is stealthier.

From here, it's not hard to assume that Vader's plan was probably something in the vein of coming from hyperspace far enough to not be detected, and then use this sublight stealthier movement to get ready and compromise the Rebels' defenses before they could even bring them up.

Whhy Ozzel did this? Well, we don't know. Maybe he was overconfident, and felt that the stealthy approach would take too long to kill what are basically rats to the Empire. Maybe he's just clumsy. Maybe he doesn't give a ****. Whatever the case, it's very clear that Vader had some kind of stealth-based plan in mind, and that Ozzel screwed it up without consulting him. So he gets the Force Choke.

[TheThan]

I think the question was more about: what did Ozzel do wrong in his manoeuver? Was there an alternative?

There’s no real way of knowing what exactly he did wrong. Vader said he came out of lightspeed too close to the system; how close is that? We don’t know. I figure it’s too close creep up on them; but too far away to really catch them by surprise and pull off a proper surprise attack. I figure Ozzel basically just screwed up.

We don’t know how star wars sensor tech works, but it’s pretty obvious that the rebels don’t want to be found. So it makes sense that they wouldn’t be broadcasting a signal that’s powerful enough to be picked up from space. But it’s clear they haven’t gone completely dark either; they pick up the signal the probe droid sends and spot the star destroyers as they exit hyperspace.

It also makes sense that Vader at least wanted to creep up on the rebel base. As others have pointed out the asteroid activity in the system is impressive enough that a fleet of ships could potentially approach the planet without raising too much suspicion. In fact General Rieekan points out that it would be difficult to spot approaching ships with all the meteorite activity. Which is confirmed later when we see the Falcon fly into the asteroid field. We see asteroids that are clearly similar in size to the star destroyers.

Really the imperial attack on Hoth was ruined when the probe droid’s signal was detected. This gave the rebels forewarning that there would be an attack (putting them on high alert). Since they knew they couldn’t fight the empire directly their plan was to evacuate before the empire arrived. Which they immediately began doing. The battle on the surface was just a delaying fight to keep the empire off of them long enough to evacuate their supplies and personnel. The battle was effectively a wash. The empire destroyed the rebel base, but the rebels managed escape (for the most part at least); both sides accomplished their objectives. If the empire had arrived any later than they did, the rebel base would have been deserted and Vader would have been quite put off.

[Icewraith]

You don't abandon a perfectly good giant Ion Cannon and Ice Fortress like the Rebels had for no immediate reason. Constructing planetary infrastructure of that size must take time and resources the Rebels probably don't have. Finding and disabling the probe droid means the Rebels re-evaluate their evacuation plans and make sure everything is ready to go at a moment's notice.

They don't put those plans into action until the Empire shows up (or their spy network gets wind of something), because what if the probe droid never got off a signal, or the signal was garbled? If you have good cover, you don't run from your cover unless you know you've been made.

The fleet is "too close" because it's within range of the Rebels' planetary defense Ion Cannon. The cannon has a certain field of fire and range, within which it's pretty clear that smaller craft like fighters can operate fairly safely. The Star Destroyers ideally would park themselves to obstruct the routes fleeing Rebel ships can take to go to hyperspace without themselves getting in range of the Ion cannon. The fleet is "too close", so the Star Destroyers responsible for locking down part of the blockade are disabled and the Rebels get a fairly straight shot out of the system instead of having to dodge turbolaser batteries (which would eat those transports alive) while dogfighting with TIE fighters.

[hamishspence]

You don't abandon a perfectly good giant Ion Cannon and Ice Fortress like the Rebels had for no immediate reason. Constructing planetary infrastructure of that size must take time and resources the Rebels probably don't have. Finding and disabling the probe droid means the Rebels re-evaluate their evacuation plans and make sure everything is ready to go at a moment's notice.

They don't put those plans into action until the Empire shows up (or their spy network gets wind of something), because what if the probe droid never got off a signal, or the signal was garbled? If you have good cover, you don't run from your cover unless you know you've been made.

Given that Rieekan said "We'd better start the evacuation" and given that the droid self-destructed - it makes sense that they have concluded it has gotten off its message.


I think they start loading the transports before the Imperial Fleet comes out of hyperspace.

[factotum]

The fleet is "too close" because it's within range of the Rebels' planetary defense Ion Cannon.

Except, at the point Vader made the comment, the Ion Cannon hadn't been fired and therefore he had no reason to suspect that the Rebels had one. We've also seen ships go into and out of lightspeed very close to a planet, so if the fleet had to stay far away to avoid getting shot at, they would essentially be letting the Rebels go!

[TheThan]

I believe Expanded universe sources indicate that Hoth was going to be their new main base and that they were still in the process of establishing it when they were found out. (I’ll have to go look later, too late to do that sort of research) which makes sense why it was heavily defended with a planetary ion cannon and shield. Things that are too big and expensive to drop on just any ol’ planet. I’m convinced they had plans to stay there for some time.

It makes total sense that that they began packing for an evacuation as soon as they discovered the probe droid. Even Han admits that it’s a good bet the empire knows they are there. Their best bet is to get out of their before Vader shows up with a fleet of star destroyers. If the rebels had waited any longer they wouldn’t have been able to escape because they would still be busy loading supplies and personnel into their ships. I bet they were packed up and poised for evacuation when the star destroyers arrived.

I’m sure the loss of the base itself and the ion cannon is a big blow. But not as much of a blow as losing the whole upper echelon of their military command. It would take years to rebuild that; if at all possible. I’m sure a bunch of their equipment was deemed disposable and would be left behind for expedience sake, naturally this wouldn’t be vital or expensive equipment either. The power plant, shield generator and Ion cannon are things that they must leave behind; they're using them to protect the base and can't exactly pack them up mid battle. besides I bet it takes time to disassemble a power plant that big and load it onto transports piecemeal; and that's just aside from the fact that those things tend to be permanent structures.

The ion cannon idea is a good one, but they need to have that information before they drop out of lightspeed. Now it’s possible the probe droid sent information regarding that. We know it sent information regarding their power plant. So it’s not impossible but we can’t know from the film.

[Kalmageddon]

Well mostly because as presented in the film you either take Vader at his word that Ozzel was as clumsy as he was stupid or you don't.

You need to bring in information that was never in the movie written by people either to prove or disprove Vader depending on what said writer wanted and may be disproved in later movie canon (example the whole sending a distant invasion force to cut off the enemy escape path doesn't work once we've seen Han jump straight to lightspeed while still inside another ship in TFA).

It's a harmless activity and all. If you enjoy it go for it. But I hedge against conclusions that end up twisting the narrative far out from what was the original intention.

I love how you gave a perfectly reasonable explanation for your observation and everyone just ignored it and kept posting.
I'll give you my 2 cents on why this happens beyond "it's fun".
Geeks like to pretend the stories they enjoy make sense on more than a surface level, because it helps them to immerse themselves in the events. Take a look at the OotS subforum. Every time a thread pops up that asks too many questions on the logic of the events in the comic, or question the wisdom of a character's choice and come up with a thousand more optimal options, the Giant is forced to break it down by posting something along the lines of "Guys, things happen because I, the author, feel like it's the most interesting narrative outcome".
Only in Versus threads and these kind of "explain why X happened in Y movie" threads, the authors of those stories aren't here to do the same.

And I don't blame them too much. When there is a grey area in the lore of a setting or in the events of a movie, it's interesting to imagine why things happened the way they happened in-universe. What I disagree with, is digging for sources that come from expanded universe works and similar things. Because, as you say, the people that write EU stuff are just doing what we should be doing: filling the blanks with their imagination, often with no more knowledge or legitimacy than us. So if we use them as sources, we make the whole excercise pointless, we stop imagining things ourself and instead use someone else's imagination. At which point it becomes a contest of geek credibility.

[VoxRationis]

Really the imperial attack on Hoth was ruined when the probe droid’s signal was detected. This gave the rebels forewarning that there would be an attack (putting them on high alert). Since they knew they couldn’t fight the empire directly their plan was to evacuate before the empire arrived. Which they immediately began doing.


See, that's my opinion on the matter. Vader's orders (sending probe droids everywhere) were what really resulted in the Rebels evacuating. No rebel in their right mind would react to an Imperial probe droid with anything other than an evacuation. The invasion fleet just clinched it. Plus, a group of "asteroids" drifting suspiciously out of orbit should set off alarm bells in a setting which has had space warfare for thousands of years.

[Peelee]

Imperial Star Destroyers are not very stealthy craft, but they can surprise people by dropping out of hyperspace, as indeed the Imperial fleet did in Return of the Jedi.

That's not how it went down, though, is it? The Emperor ordered the fleet to be moved to the far side of the moon before the shuttle Tydirium arrived, so the Rebels didn't know the fleet had been massed by the Death Star. I had always assumed that the fleet then repositioned by the Death Star behind the most likely egress point for the Rebel fleet, and the Rebels sprung the trap by jumping in between the Star Destroyers and the Death Star. Never heard one mention of the Star Destroyers suddenly jumping out of hyperspace, at least in the film. Did the novelization differ?

[Lentrax]

General Reikan: "With all the meteorite activity in the system it will be hard to detect approaching ships."

Darth Vader: "The Rebels are alerted to our presence. Admiral Ozzel brought us out of lightspeed too close to the system."


The Hoth system has a massive asteroid belt. This is canonically established with the chase through the field after the Falcon's hyperdrive failure. Asteroids can be massive. And from A New Hope, we also know that asteroid fields are on hyperspace charts, making them a known hazard.

But meteorites are not massive. And after seeing asteroid collisions during the chase scene, it is easy to figure out what causes the meteorite activity. It is not too huge a leap to assume that Ozzel brought them out of hyperspace at a point where star destroyers, including the Super Star Destroyer Exectuor, just can't be masked on sensors as nothing but huge asteroids. It was a rookie mistake in Vader's eyes.

[VoxRationis]

That's not how it went down, though, is it? The Emperor ordered the fleet to be moved to the far side of the moon before the shuttle Tydirium arrived, so the Rebels didn't know the fleet had been massed by the Death Star. I had always assumed that the fleet then repositioned by the Death Star behind the most likely egress point for the Rebel fleet, and the Rebels sprung the trap by jumping in between the Star Destroyers and the Death Star. Never heard one mention of the Star Destroyers suddenly jumping out of hyperspace, at least in the film. Did the novelization differ?

Truly? I had forgotten the "far side of the moon" thing. From the relative positions and orientations of the objects in the battle, I always was under the impression that the Imperial fleet jumped in behind them. When the Rebel fleet comes in, they come directly at the Death Star from the opposite direction to the forest moon. They continue on an attack approach towards both the Death Star and the moon until they realize the Death Star's shields are still up, at which point they turn around (splitting at least the first wave in two during the process, but as they don't seem to be particularly grouped into two later on, they probably tried to do a 180 and meet back up again) and find the Imperial fleet, now facing them. This means that the Imperial fleet is now where the Rebel fleet was when they first entered the field of battle, or at least in a similar relative position. I find it difficult to believe that a fleet hiding on the far side of the moon could have come the entire distance around the moon, which the Rebel fleet was facing, to sneak up behind the Rebel fleet. Or, for that matter, that Rebel ships don't have windows and/or sensors covering all sides, which would prevent the "hide behind the likely insertion point" strategy.

As a second point regarding that battle, I find it quite odd that the Rebels chose to commit their larger ships to the battle. Only their fighters were going to be useful in their chosen attack and the defensive abilities of the Death Star (and any escorts it might have) would necessitate the larger ships hanging back, beyond any ability to aid the fighter wings. Rebel fighters, unlike Imperial TIE fighters, have independent hyperdrive capability and can insert/extract themselves from a battlefield. Even though they didn't realize the Emperor had planned the whole thing, it would have been prudent to use their capital ships to attack other targets of opportunity just before the fighter wings attacked the Death Star. Doing that would keep their most valuable ships and personnel out of the (extremely risky) main assault while misleading the Empire and punishing them for every Star Destroyer sent to escort the Death Star.

[Peelee]

Basically, the Hoth system had a ridiculously large and dense asteroid field in the outer system where there are gas giants in the Sol system.
Our system is named the Solar system, not the Sol system.


Truly? I had forgotten the "far side of the moon" thing. From the relative positions and orientations of the objects in the battle, I always was under the impression that the Imperial fleet jumped in behind them. When the Rebel fleet comes in, they come directly at the Death Star from the opposite direction to the forest moon. They continue on an attack approach towards both the Death Star and the moon until they realize the Death Star's shields are still up, at which point they turn around (splitting at least the first wave in two during the process, but as they don't seem to be particularly grouped into two later on, they probably tried to do a 180 and meet back up again) and find the Imperial fleet, now facing them. This means that the Imperial fleet is now where the Rebel fleet was when they first entered the field of battle, or at least in a similar relative position. I find it difficult to believe that a fleet hiding on the far side of the moon could have come the entire distance around the moon, which the Rebel fleet was facing, to sneak up behind the Rebel fleet. Or, for that matter, that Rebel ships don't have windows and/or sensors covering all sides, which would prevent the "hide behind the likely insertion point" strategy.
OK, for the sake of argument, screw any sense of scale, because I don't feel like using a bunch of zeroes or scientific notation for better numbers.

Let's say the Rebel fleet drops out of hyperspace 50 miles from the Death star. They close to withing 10 miles, turn around, and find the Imperial fleet at roughly the 50 mile mark.

The Imperial fleet could have started at 70 miles back and begun closing subspace as soon as the Rebels emerged from hyperspace.

So long as the Imperial fleet was far enough away that the Rebel fleet would emerge from hyperspace between them and the Death Star, trap works. Your argument, if I'm reading you right, is that they had to be so far behind the fleet that a hyperspace jump was necessary to close the distance. I'm saying that they were likely far closer than that.


As a second point regarding that battle, I find it quite odd that the Rebels chose to commit their larger ships to the battle. Only their fighters were going to be useful in their chosen attack and the defensive abilities of the Death Star (and any escorts it might have) would necessitate the larger ships hanging back, beyond any ability to aid the fighter wings. Rebel fighters, unlike Imperial TIE fighters, have independent hyperdrive capability and can insert/extract themselves from a battlefield. Even though they didn't realize the Emperor had planned the whole thing, it would have been prudent to use their capital ships to attack other targets of opportunity just before the fighter wings attacked the Death Star. Doing that would keep their most valuable ships and personnel out of the (extremely risky) main assault while misleading the Empire and punishing them for every Star Destroyer sent to escort the Death Star.

Eh, there was at the very least a Super Star Destroyer guarding the Death Star. Snubfighters would have been swatted out of the sky without at something to handle any capital ships hanging around. The main assault wasn't supposed to be extremely risky, because the Death Star was supposed to be non-operational, and there were only supposed to be a scant few capital ships guarding the station. The Super Star Destroyer is a helluva beast. Being able to have all available capital ships focus fire on it gives the best chance of taking it out quickly with minimal casualties.

[VoxRationis]

Our system is named the Solar system, not the Sol system.


OK, for the sake of argument, screw any sense of scale, because I don't feel like using a bunch of zeroes or scientific notation for better numbers.

Let's say the Rebel fleet drops out of hyperspace 50 miles from the Death star. They close to withing 10 miles, turn around, and find the Imperial fleet at roughly the 50 mile mark.

The Imperial fleet could have started at 70 miles back and begun closing subspace as soon as the Rebels emerged from hyperspace.

So long as the Imperial fleet was far enough away that the Rebel fleet would emerge from hyperspace between them and the Death Star, trap works. Your argument, if I'm reading you right, is that they had to be so far behind the fleet that a hyperspace jump was necessary to close the distance. I'm saying that they were likely far closer than that.

My point is that if the Imperial fleet starts at "70 miles" back and the Rebels jump to "50 miles" back, there's only "20 miles" between the two fleets, and the Rebels should have noticed, and the trap would have been wasted.




Eh, there was at the very least a Super Star Destroyer guarding the Death Star. Snubfighters would have been swatted out of the sky without at something to handle any capital ships hanging around. The main assault wasn't supposed to be extremely risky, because the Death Star was supposed to be non-operational, and there were only supposed to be a scant few capital ships guarding the station. The Super Star Destroyer is a helluva beast. Being able to have all available capital ships focus fire on it gives the best chance of taking it out quickly with minimal casualties.
The Rebel ships were only able to beat the Executor because they focused fire and then a couple of Imperial bridge technicians didn't do their jobs quickly enough to beat a random event. When Ackbar ordered his ships to focus on the Executor, it was as a desperation ploy—he was shocked when it actually worked. No mention was ever made of a plan going in to attempt anything of the sort—trying to brute-force an Imperial escort with Rebel cruisers would be more insane than the fighter-v.-Death Star plan. The only reason Ackbar thought it was worth trying because the only other option available at the time was "be target practice for a planet-destroying laser."

[Nerd-o-rama]

Truly? I had forgotten the "far side of the moon" thing. From the relative positions and orientations of the objects in the battle, I always was under the impression that the Imperial fleet jumped in behind them. When the Rebel fleet comes in, they come directly at the Death Star from the opposite direction to the forest moon. They continue on an attack approach towards both the Death Star and the moon until they realize the Death Star's shields are still up, at which point they turn around (splitting at least the first wave in two during the process, but as they don't seem to be particularly grouped into two later on, they probably tried to do a 180 and meet back up again) and find the Imperial fleet, now facing them. This means that the Imperial fleet is now where the Rebel fleet was when they first entered the field of battle, or at least in a similar relative position. I find it difficult to believe that a fleet hiding on the far side of the moon could have come the entire distance around the moon, which the Rebel fleet was facing, to sneak up behind the Rebel fleet. Or, for that matter, that Rebel ships don't have windows and/or sensors covering all sides, which would prevent the "hide behind the likely insertion point" strategy.

In point of fact, the situation as presented in the film doesn't make a whole lot of sense unless you assume (like the non-tactician, non-scientist filmmakers probably did instinctively) that the Rebels only looked "forward" at the Death Star until Lando gave the order to pull up and they noticed the Star Destroyer pincer closing behind them. I'm going to put that up to a filmmaking flub, but it could probably be justified as the Star Destroyer fleet making a hyperspace "microjump" from one side of the moon to the other - risky with that number of ships, but not without support in Star Wars Legends tactics.


As a second point regarding that battle, I find it quite odd that the Rebels chose to commit their larger ships to the battle. Only their fighters were going to be useful in their chosen attack and the defensive abilities of the Death Star (and any escorts it might have) would necessitate the larger ships hanging back, beyond any ability to aid the fighter wings. Rebel fighters, unlike Imperial TIE fighters, have independent hyperdrive capability and can insert/extract themselves from a battlefield. Even though they didn't realize the Emperor had planned the whole thing, it would have been prudent to use their capital ships to attack other targets of opportunity just before the fighter wings attacked the Death Star. Doing that would keep their most valuable ships and personnel out of the (extremely risky) main assault while misleading the Empire and punishing them for every Star Destroyer sent to escort the Death Star.

Aside from the fact that the climax would have been literally the same thing as the Battle of Yavin then, if you watch the briefing scene (and the fact that no one on the Tiderium is surprised to see a Super Star Destroyer hanging around), the Rebels are quite certain that the incomplete Death Star would have escorts, unlike the finished original. No matter how vulnerable Imperial orders of battle may have been the starfighter assault, or how arrogant the Emperor may have been, a few squadrons of starfighters couldn't have reasonably expected to run the gauntlet among all those battlecruisers and their own fighter escorts without the Rebellion's own cruisers to absorb some fire.

In other words, unlike at Yavin, the Rebels were both anticipating a great deal of conventional resistance and actually able to deploy a full fleet of capital ships. They were forced to go all-in on the final assault to have any chance at all of accomplishing their objective. And the fact of the matter is, it worked, when if the Imperials didn't have cruisers and frigates to shoot at, fighters would have been swarmed under by sheer volume of turbolaser fire combined with the TIE fighters in a matter of minutes.

[Ceiling_Squid]

Our system is named the Solar system, not the Sol system.


Minor tangent, but try telling that to sci-fi writers, not us.

In interstellar fiction, it's extremely popular to treat the term "solar system" as a generic term for any star with planetary bodies. Especially since it's much easier to use the term "solar" (a la solar wind, solar flare, solar power, etc) as a descriptor for any star-related phenomena, instead of having to create a new word.

Calling it the "Sol" system at least keeps it in line with the root name of the star in question and distinguishes it from the genericized term "solar".

It seems a sensible change in a sprawling sci-fi universe. Star Trek does it, as does Mass Effect and Halo and other popular franchises. It's a tradition in the context of sci-fi at this point.

Anyway, sorry about the digression!

[Peelee]

My point is that if the Imperial fleet starts at "70 miles" back and the Rebels jump to "50 miles" back, there's only "20 miles" between the two fleets, and the Rebels should have noticed, and the trap would have been wasted.
Yeah, the sensors should have picked up something. Unless...

Lando Calrissian: We've gotta be able to get some kind of a reading on that shield, up or down.
Nien Nunb: [speaks in Sullustese]
Lando Calrissian: But how could they be jamming us if they don't know... if we're coming?
[over comlink]
Lando Calrissian: Break off the attack! The shield is still up!
Wedge Antilles: I get no reading. Are you sure?
Lando Calrissian: Pull up! All craft, pull up!
Admiral Ackbar: Take evasive action! Green group, stick close to holding section MV-7!
Mon Calamari: Admiral! We have enemy ships in sector 47!
Admiral Ackbar: It's a trap!
The rebels are being jammed, and unable to pick up anything on their sensors. Hence, unable to see the Star Destroyers that were right behind them until they could physically see them.

The Rebel ships were only able to beat the Executor because they focused fire and then a couple of Imperial bridge technicians didn't do their jobs quickly enough to beat a random event. When Ackbar ordered his ships to focus on the Executor, it was as a desperation ploy—he was shocked when it actually worked. No mention was ever made of a plan going in to attempt anything of the sort—trying to brute-force an Imperial escort with Rebel cruisers would be more insane than the fighter-v.-Death Star plan. The only reason Ackbar thought it was worth trying because the only other option available at the time was "be target practice for a planet-destroying laser."
General Calrissian gives the order to engage the Imperial fleet at point blank range. This was the desperation ploy. This was the only other option available at the time. Focusing all firepower on the Super Star Destroyer was tactically sound, as it was more armed and more sizable than any other ship in the field, and was likely inflicting the most damage by far. Again, that was probably the idea in the beginning, until an entire damn fleet turned out to be in play as well.

Consider: the Rebels know where the Death Star is and think they know what is guarding it. The landing party sees exactly what they expect to see. They then jump the whole damn fleet in. The best reasoning for this is that they expected to need the whole fleet in order to remove the protection that the Death Star was afforded. Also, the Emperor is known to be on the station. They could also be around to provide any support whatsoever in ensuring that he could not escape the station, as a secondary benefit.

Also, I always thought Ackbar's reaction was sorrow for the A-Wing pilot, but a large amount of the internet claim that his reaction is relief that the SSD is removed from the field of play. You're the only one I've ever seen who reads it as "shock that the plan worked."


Minor tangent, but try telling that to sci-fi writers, not us.

In interstellar fiction, it's extremely popular to treat the term "solar system" as a generic term for any star with planetary bodies. Especially since it's much easier to use the term "solar" (a la solar wind, solar flare, solar power, etc) as a descriptor for any star-related phenomena, instead of having to create a new word.

Calling it the "Sol" system at least keeps it in line with the root name of the star in question and distinguishes it from the genericized term "solar".

It seems a sensible change in a sprawling sci-fi universe. Star Trek does it, as does Mass Effect and Halo and other popular franchises. It's a tradition in the context of sci-fi at this point.

Anyway, sorry about the digression!

Oh, I realize. It doesn't help that our moon is called Moon, our sun is called Sun, and our solar system is called Solar system, despite those also being the generic names for such things. Sci-fi authors refuse to believe that science is simple to the point of stupidity sometimes.

[Velaryon]

I'd like to contribute two points to the discussion:

1. With regard to the Rebels not detecting the Imperial fleet right away when they jump into the Endor system, it's been mentioned that there's sensor jamming going on, hence why they didn't immediately detect that the shield was still up and abort the plan. But it's also possible, perhaps even likely, that the Imperial fleet was behind cover. Remember that all the action on the ground was taking place on Endor's moon. It's entirely possible that the actual planet hid the fleet from view until they moved into position and closed the trap.

2. On Vader killing Ozzel for his perceived incompetence in bringing the fleet out of hyperspace too close to Hoth: when has Darth Vader ever been portrayed as rational? He's always been a character that acts on instinct and feeling rather than logic. Even if we discount the prequels, in ANH he went looking for Obi-Wan on the Death Star because he sensed a presence, not because he thought it likely that Rebels had gotten aboard. He took his TIE and escorts out into the battle at Yavin even though they had every reason to think (as Tarkin did) that the Rebel attack was hopeless. Vader was certainly more cool and calm than in his younger years, but he still was obviously guided by feelings rather than logic for the most part. Not to mention the Empire's whole "rule by fear" practice, which was clearly practiced on their own military in addition to the civilian populace.

[Peelee]

I'd like to contribute two points to the discussion:

1. With regard to the Rebels not detecting the Imperial fleet right away when they jump into the Endor system, it's been mentioned that there's sensor jamming going on, hence why they didn't immediately detect that the shield was still up and abort the plan. But it's also possible, perhaps even likely, that the Imperial fleet was behind cover. Remember that all the action on the ground was taking place on Endor's moon. It's entirely possible that the actual planet hid the fleet from view until they moved into position and closed the trap.


Actually, Endor was the moon. We are never told what the parent planet is named.


Astrographical information
Region(s): Outer Rim Territories
Sector: Moddell sector
System: Endor system
Suns: Endor I, Endor II
Moons: Endor
So.... I don't think Lucas knows what "moon" means.

[Storm_Of_Snow]

In point of fact, the situation as presented in the film doesn't make a whole lot of sense unless you assume (like the non-tactician, non-scientist filmmakers probably did instinctively) that the Rebels only looked "forward" at the Death Star until Lando gave the order to pull up and they noticed the Star Destroyer pincer closing behind them. I'm going to put that up to a filmmaking flub, but it could probably be justified as the Star Destroyer fleet making a hyperspace "microjump" from one side of the moon to the other - risky with that number of ships, but not without support in Star Wars Legends tactics.

There's also the minor issue that we see the two fleets from the side and a long way away when we look out from the Emperor's throne room, rather than fairly close and with the Rebels between the POV and the Imperial fleet. Frankly, I'm surprised GL didn't update that and shove in some CGI when he was doing his remastering of the films. :smallamused:

As for Admiral Akbar's sorrow, it may just be me, but I assumed it was for all of the lives lost (over a quarter of a million people aboard the Executor alone).

[Velaryon]

Actually, Endor was the moon. We are never told what the parent planet is named.

So.... I don't think Lucas knows what "moon" means.

I think "forest moon of Endor" can be read more than one way. It's also been my understanding for a long time, though I confess I can't remember where I originally got the idea, that the name can interchangeably refer to both the planet and the moon.

Either way, it's all tangential to the actual point of my post.

[Cikomyr]

Its not a matter of science, but simple nomenclature. Sol is the latin root name fot anything sun-related. Solar merely means "of the sun"; solar power, solar sails, etc..

When you talking about Star systems, you usually use the star's proper name to identify the system. Its the Centauri System, not the Centaurian system. Hence why using Sol as our sun's proper name as well as our system's is fine.

Plus, it helps establish the difference between a common name and a proper name. The Sol System is a Solar System. Luna is a moon. Earth is a planet. Etc.

[hamishspence]

Endor is the name of the planet (thanks to newcanon reference works - though it's called that in the Legendsverse too) - but the Forest Moon is commonly called Endor as well:


http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Endor_(planet)


Endor was a planet[4] located in the Endor system,[1] a binary[2] star system positioned in the Moddell sector of the galaxy's Outer Rim Territories,[1] that was orbited by a forest moon of the same name.[3]


It being called "moon"

"Shuttle Tydirium, what is your cargo and destination?"
"Parts and technical crew for the Forest Moon. "


It being called just "Endor"

“A small Rebel force has penetrated the shield and landed on Endor.”
“Yes. I know.”
“My…son is with them.”
“Are you sure?”
“I have…felt him, my Master.”
“Strange that I have not…I wonder if your feelings on this matter are clear, Lord Vader…”
“They are clear, my Master.”

[Peelee]

Its not a matter of science, but simple nomenclature. Sol is the latin root name fot anything sun-related. Solar merely means "of the sun"; solar power, solar sails, etc..

When you talking about Star systems, you usually use the star's proper name to identify the system. Its the Centauri System, not the Centaurian system. Hence why using Sol as our sun's proper name as well as our system's is fine.

Plus, it helps establish the difference between a common name and a proper name. The Sol System is a Solar System. Luna is a moon. Earth is a planet. Etc.

Except it's wrong. Our sun is not named Sol. It is named Sun. Every scientific paper you read will have it listed that way. Our moon is not named Luna any more than it is named Selene. It is named Moon. The Centauri system is a solar system, but it is not the Solar system.

You can call the Sun "Sol," and your audience will likely know what you're talking about, but that's like saying I can call my friend Steve "hey *******" and then claiming that this is his proper name. It's not.


Endor is the name of the planet (thanks to newcanon reference works - though it's called that in the Legendsverse too) - but the Forest Moon is commonly called Endor as well

Thanks for that. I missed any reference to ie being a planet in Legends, and Newcanon is releasing stuff too fast for me to be up on it.

[hamishspence]

"Sol" is "Sun" in Latin.

Most times, it'll be called "the Sun" rather than "Sun" on its own, in textbooks - whereas nobody ever refers to "the Jupiter" for example.

[TheThan]

In the made for TV Ewok adventure movies “caravan of Courage” and “the battle for Endor”, there are several establishing shots that show that Endor is close by a red gas giant (the sun is yellow like ours). This easily explains why everyone calls it “the forest moon of Endor”. it's pretty easy to assume the Endor is orbiting the gas giant. Unfortunately this has been (stupidly) rendered non-canon by Disney.

[Cikomyr]

Except it's wrong. Our sun is not named Sol. It is named Sun. Every scientific paper you read will have it listed that way. Our moon is not named Luna any more than it is named Selene. It is named Moon. The Centauri system is a solar system, but it is not the Solar system.

You can call the Sun "Sol," and your audience will likely know what you're talking about, but that's like saying I can call my friend Steve "hey *******" and then claiming that this is his proper name. It's not.

Maybe from a purely anglocentric point of view. For me, our sun is called Soleil. For a spanish, its Sol, for an italian, its Sole. For a german, its Sonne.

[hamishspence]

In the made for TV Ewok adventure movies “caravan of Courage” and “the battle for Endor”, there are several establishing shots that show that Endor is close by a red gas giant (the sun is yellow like ours). This easily explains why everyone calls it “the forest moon of Endor”. it's pretty easy to assume the Endor is orbiting the gas giant. Unfortunately this has been (stupidly) rendered non-canon by Disney.

While the adventure movies themselves are currently Legendsverse - newcanon reference works have been mentioning creatures that appeared in them. Ultimate Star Wars mentions Condor Dragons and Gorax - and several newcanon novels and short stories talk about "Endor's moon" or "Endor's green moon".

Even creatures from the Ewoks TV series, like Duloks and bordoks, have gotten mentions in Ultimate Star Wars and Star Wars: Absolutely Everything You Need To Know.

The writers of the reference books seem to be keen on recanonizing at least these little background details.

[Peelee]

Maybe from a purely anglocentric point of view. For me, our sun is called Soleil. For a spanish, its Sol, for an italian, its Sole. For a german, its Sonne.

See, I have no problem with that. It's just when people try to authoritatively claim that its "official" name is Sol is when I pop up with my rant.

[hamishspence]

it's pretty easy to assume the Endor is orbiting the gas giant. Unfortunately this has been (stupidly) rendered non-canon by Disney.

Oddly, the first novelization of the movie said that the gas giant had been destroyed a long time before:


At the feathered edge of the galaxy, the Death Star floated in stationary orbit above the green moon Endor — a moon whose mother planet had long since died of unknown cataclysm and disappeared into unknown realms. The Death Star was the Empire's armoured battle station, nearly twice as big as its predecessor, which Rebel forces had destroyed so many years before — nearly twice as big, but more than twice as powerful. Yet it was only half complete.

but, pretty much from the Ewoks movies onward - everybody ignored this, including newcanon authors.

[Peelee]

but, pretty much from the Ewoks movies onward - everybody ignored this, including newcanon authors.

Huh. I kind of like that writing style. That author done any other SW books?

[hamishspence]

Huh. I kind of like that writing style. That author done any other SW books?

Nope. He has written other novelizations though:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Kahn

And his ROTJ one is often cited as unusually good by novelization standards - portrayal of Vader and Palpatine's dynamic - and Vader's death scene being exceptionally touching.

[Thrudd]

I agree with the interpretation that the intent was to come out of hyperspace closer to the asteroid field, and create a more air-tight blockade around the planet before the Rebels could detect them, before launching the attack to flush them out. Also, if they could get into position before detection, they could have used orbital bombardment to take out the shield generator and most of the defenses right away (although they never show star destroyers doing that in the movies, it is an implied capability of capital ships, because otherwise why would there be a need for planetary shields?). The only hole in the writing comes in when they mention that they need to open the shields to let the transports out. If ships can't pass through the shields, then why can walkers? Is it something to do with ion engines or some other tech specific to star ships that a shield interferes with? Because capital ships are protected by shields which their fighters can fly right through. They have to be able to, in order to deploy during a battle. Or do they open up the shields just around the hangars to let fighters in and out? In which case, it seems like that would be a primary target for turbo laser batteries.

[hamishspence]

The only hole in the writing comes in when they mention that they need to open the shields to let the transports out. If ships can't pass through the shields, then why can walkers?

Probably the same principle that applies to PT Gungan shields - a sufficiently slow object (like walking battle droids) can pass through. Dune had the same principle.

[Peelee]

I agree with the interpretation that the intent was to come out of hyperspace closer to the asteroid field, and create a more air-tight blockade around the planet before the Rebels could detect them, before launching the attack to flush them out. Also, if they could get into position before detection, they could have used orbital bombardment to take out the shield generator and most of the defenses right away (although they never show star destroyers doing that in the movies, it is an implied capability of capital ships, because otherwise why would there be a need for planetary shields?). The only hole in the writing comes in when they mention that they need to open the shields to let the transports out. If ships can't pass through the shields, then why can walkers? Is it something to do with ion engines or some other tech specific to star ships that a shield interferes with? Because capital ships are protected by shields which their fighters can fly right through. They have to be able to, in order to deploy during a battle. Or do they open up the shields just around the hangars to let fighters in and out? In which case, it seems like that would be a primary target for turbo laser batteries.

Planetary shields cover the entire planet. Echo Base was the only necessary location on Hoth to shield. It would have been a logistical and financial blunder to have a full planetary shield cover. A smaller shield protected the base from bombardment, and needed to be lowered to allow the transport ships (and ion cannon blasts) to get through. The walkers landed outside of the shielded perimeter.

[Cikomyr]

See, I have no problem with that. It's just when people try to authoritatively claim that its "official" name is Sol is when I pop up with my rant.

Terra, Luna and Sol are most likely going to end up being the official names if we evolve in an interplanetary society

[hamishspence]

The walkers landed outside of the shielded perimeter.

The big question is whether the shield goes all the way down to ground level - forcing walkers to walk through it - or whether it's more like an "umbrella" with a gap underneath.

[Peelee]

Terra, Luna and Sol are most likely going to end up being the official names if we evolve in an interplanetary society
I doubt this, for the record.

The big question is whether the shield goes all the way down to ground level - forcing walkers to walk through it - or whether it's more like an "umbrella" with a gap underneath.
Aha. Umbrella coverage is what I'd guess, though I have little basis for this. We do know that there are different types of shielding - ray and deflector, at the very least. Gungan shielding could have been ray shielding without particle shielding (this would rely on Trade Federation tanks using pure energy beams as their cannon discharge, and not physical shells).

[hamishspence]

In TCW, Droideka shielding stops blaster bolts and rapidly moving physical objects like thrown grenades - but slowly rolled grenades or "droid popper" EMP weapons pass through the shield, detonating inside to take out the droid.

I think the Gungan shield was a giant version of this.

[Peelee]

In TCW, Droideka shielding stops blaster bolts and rapidly moving physical objects like thrown grenades - but slowly rolled grenades or "droid popper" EMP weapons pass through the shield, detonating inside to take out the droid.

I think the Gungan shield was a giant version of this.

The Gungan shielding was odd, to say the least. It also repelled water, which was likely not moving at any noticeable speed, since the Jedi and Jar Jar seemed unaffected by currents. The shielding also whisked the water away from their clothes and bodies, effectively drying them, while not removing all moisture and desiccating everything.

[hamishspence]

The Gungan shielding was odd, to say the least. It also repelled water, which was likely not moving at any noticeable speed, since the Jedi and Jar Jar seemed unaffected by currents. The shielding also whisked the water away from their clothes and bodies, effectively drying them, while not removing all moisture and desiccating everything.

I was thinking more of the Battle of Naboo than the city-defending shields - but it is possible that they're the same basic design.

Another "permeable to objects but not to cannon shells or blaster bolts" shield was in the TCW movie - that one was expandable - used to protect advancing troops, which followed behind the shield's expanding surface.

[Peelee]

I was thinking more of the Battle of Naboo than the city-defending shields - but it is possible that they're the same basic design.

Another "permeable to objects but not to cannon shells or blaster bolts" shield was in the TCW movie - that one was expandable - used to protect advancing troops, which followed behind the shield's expanding surface.

I'm assuming the city shields and military shields use the same design, yes. Also, I think part of my hatred for TCW stems from seeing the movie first, and (all other bad things in it aside for the moment) Ziro the Hutt just ruined the whole damn thing for me.

[hamishspence]

I read the book before seeing the movie - thought the book was a lot better.

[Peelee]

I read the book before seeing the movie - thought the book was a lot better.

Worked as a projectionist at the time. I actually got paid to watch it, to ensure I built it right. Still wanted my money back.

I remember it's about a Jabba baby theft, but I've forgotten most of the details. Maybe I should look into the book. So long as I can shake off that Truman Capote voice, it might be bearable.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Shields in Star Wars generally work in whatever way the scene needs them to work, which generally gets interpreted in-universe as different types of shielding.

What we know about the Hoth localized shield is that it stops "any" bombardment, and starships can't fly directly through it, but walkers can get inside it. What we know about the Gungan battle shields in Ep 1 are that they stop directed energy weapons (and presumably starships, but they're too low to the ground for this to matter), but hovertanks and infantry can get inside it. If these are the same basic technology, for Occam's Razor purposes, it seems to be something that works based on kinetic energy: fast-moving objects or particle beams are stopped, slow-moving ones are not. Might also account for why the Gungans favored arm-and atlatl-thrown weapons - they could be lobbed at relatively low velocities through the shields from the inside.

As for the city-shields that kept the Gungan cities full of oxygen, I see no reason to think these shields can't be set up in the opposite way: acting like a membrane that keeps out low-energy things, but can be pushed through with energy. This type of shield would be perfect for a submarine society, but useless on a battlefield, unless there were a way to layer it with the former type of shield, but I rather doubt it.

Other types of shields established in the films and explicated by Legendsverse are ray shields and their complement, particle shields. Per Legends resources I dimly recollect, all ships have particle shields that deflect the normal hazards of space, and physical projectiles like proton torpedoes are designed to overcome them with focused explosions in the same way they overcome basic armor and hull integrity. Ray shields, meanwhile, mitigate particle beams and lasers that would normally just melt everything they hit. In some sources, missiles bypass "shields" (meaning ray shields), in others (mostly video games), they do not, and the "shields" there are presumed to be a combined rating of ray and particle shielding.

[hamishspence]

ANH has the most obvious "missile bypasses ray shield" example:


"The shaft is ray shielded, so you'll have to use proton torpedoes"



In ROTS, a "ray shield trap" is used to imprison Obi-Wan and Anakin until the droids arrive to deliver them to Grievous.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Terra, Luna and Sol are most likely going to end up being the official names if we evolve in an interplanetary society

It would be Gaia, due to the system of naming planetary bodies after deities.

[Nerd-o-rama]

It would be Gaia, due to the system of naming planetary bodies after deities.

Terra is the Latin/Roman name for that deity, though. Gaia is Greek. In English, we call every other planet (and Pluto) in this solar system after Latin/Roman deities, so logically, it'd be Terra.

[factotum]

Just going back to the earlier discussion for a moment--the Imperial fleet weren't actually *behind* the Rebels? We saw a head-on shot as the Rebel capital ships turned to avoid crashing into the Death Star's shield, and there were very clearly no Imperial ships there. The Imperial fleet were more off to one side, as far as I could tell, and it's never made entirely clear why they weren't obvious to the Rebels up to that point.

[Cikomyr]

Terra is the Latin/Roman name for that deity, though. Gaia is Greek. In English, we call every other planet (and Pluto) in this solar system after Latin/Roman deities, so logically, it'd be Terra.

I would go as far as saying "in the Western world". Not sure what were ancient Arabs, Chinese and Indians's names for the planetes

Edit: apparently, the 5 main planetes seen from the naked eye* are named in Chinese after their 5 base elements (water, earth, fire, metal, wood)


*almost accidentally wrote " baked eyes" XD

[druid91]

See, I have no problem with that. It's just when people try to authoritatively claim that its "official" name is Sol is when I pop up with my rant.

This is English we're talking about here. There are no 'official' words. Only popular ones.

[TheThan]

I would go as far as saying "in the Western world". Not sure what were ancient Arabs, Chinese and Indians's names for the planetes

Edit: apparently, the 5 main planetes seen from the naked eye* are named in Chinese after their 5 base elements (water, earth, fire, metal, wood)


*almost accidentally wrote " baked eyes" XD

what? You mean other cultures don't name things using English words? how dare they!

[hamishspence]

We saw a head-on shot as the Rebel capital ships turned to avoid crashing into the Death Star's shield, and there were very clearly no Imperial ships there. The Imperial fleet were more off to one side, as far as I could tell, and it's never made entirely clear why they weren't obvious to the Rebels up to that point.

The novelization version:


'Pull up!' Lando commanded. 'All craft pull up!'
He banked hard to the left, the fighters of the Red Squad veering close on his tail.
Some didn't make it. Three flanking X-wings nicked the invisible deflector shield, spinning out of control, exploding in flames along the shield surface. None of the others paused to look back.
On the Rebel Star Cruiser bridge, alarms were screaming, lights flashing, klaxons blaring, as the mammoth space cruiser abruptly altered its momentum, trying to change course in time to avoid collision with the shield. Officers were running from battle stations to navigation controls; other ships in the fleet could be seen through the view-screens, careening wildly in a hundred directions, some slowing, some speeding up.
Admiral Ackbar spoke urgently but quietly into the comlink. 'Take evasive action. Green Group steer course for Holding Sector. MG-7 Blue Group -'
A Mon Calamari controller, across the bridge, called out to Ackbar with grave excitement. 'Admiral, we have enemy ships at Sector RT-23 and PB-4.'
The large central view-screen was coming alive. It was no longer just the Death Star and the green moon behind it, floating isolated in space. Now the massive Imperial fleet could be seen flying in perfect, regimental formation, out from behind Endor in two behemoth flanking waves - heading to surround the Rebel fleet from both sides, like the pincers of a deadly scorpion.
And the shield barricaded the Alliance in front. They had nowhere to go.
Ackbar spoke desperately into the comlink. 'It's a trap. Prepare for attack.'

[Cikomyr]

what? You mean other cultures don't name things using English words? how dare they!

Hence why i think using the most commonly used root of these things should he the standard in the future. A dead language* anyway.

*or desperate life support anyway

[Peelee]

The novelization version:

Well, that's settled rather definitively then. Thanks!

[Aeson]

The Imperial fleet were more off to one side, as far as I could tell, and it's never made entirely clear why they weren't obvious to the Rebels up to that point.
Perhaps not, but recall that Emperor Palpatine ordered Vader to send the fleet to "the far side of the Sanctuary Moon," i.e. presumably the moon was between the Imperial fleet and the Death Star at the time that the Rebel fleet dropped out of hyperspace. The Imperial fleet would then have begun moving into blocking position once the Rebel fleet arrived, and so is in the position in which it's seen once the Rebel fleet turns around to take up blockading stations around the Death Star until the shield is dropped. Then there's also the jamming that prevented the Rebels from detecting the status of such a minor and likely low-power thing as a shield projected around an enormous spaceship from the surface of the moon that the ship was orbiting (some EU sources make the claim that the Death Star is 160km in diameter, which is already considerably larger by volume than the entire combined Rebel and Imperial fleet present for the battle, but if you take what you see in the movies to be more canonical than what is written in the additional material, it is easy to see that the Death Star as depicted should have a considerably larger diameter than 160km as the Death Star's horizon as seen in the Executor's crash scene appears nearly or completely flat).


What we know about the Gungan battle shields in Ep 1 are that they stop directed energy weapons (and presumably starships, but they're too low to the ground for this to matter), but hovertanks and infantry can get inside it.
It's been a long time since I watched The Phantom Menace, but don't the hover tanks remain outside of the shield and only the battle and destroyer droids pass through? I don't recall any of the floating vehicles being within the area protected by the shield until after the shield generator gets destroyed.


he killed Captain Needa for not capturing the Millennium Falcon when he was lead to believe they had (remember the line Piet delivers, “my lord, we have them!”.);
That's a reasonable interpretation, but I'd also point out that Needa (unintentionally) made a fool of Vader, the Imperial Navy, and the Empire in front of a bunch of bounty hunters, which strikes me as having the potential to infuriate Vader beyond just a simple failure. Needa's report about having found the Millenium Falcon comes in as Vader is briefing the bounty hunters on their mission, and Vader is told "My Lord, we have them," right in front of all the bounty hunters. So Vader presumably cancels the job and sends them away, and then a few minutes later has to call them back and say "err, about that job we didn't need you guys to do? Yeah, we need you to go do it." Vader isn't exactly a nice guy, he's not one to suffer fools gladly, and I'd bet he was angered and possibly somewhat embarrassed by having to summon the bounty hunters back to do the job that he'd just told them he didn't need them to do.

Also recall that at the end of the movie Vader did not execute Piett despite the circumstances being more or less the same other than not being made to look like a fool in front of non-Imperial personnel. Piett promised Vader that the Falcon's hyperdrive was disabled, and Vader's hopes for this capture were likely higher - in this case, he knew his son was aboard the ship, whereas in the asteroid field he at best simply hopes his son is aboard and may know that he'll only be catching people close to his son. Piett had also been warned not to fail Vader again by Vader himself, and everyone on the bridge seemed to expect that Vader was going to execute someone for the failure to capture the Millenium Falcon.


Vader was rather notorious for murdering his officers when they didn’t follow his instructions precisely, when they failed
The characterization of Vader's relations with his direct subordinates appears to change a fair bit between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. That officer accompanying Vader on the Tantive IV who seemed somewhat strongly opposed to holding Princess Leia captive didn't seem remotely afraid that Vader might execute him, which implies a rather different relationship than appears to be the case between Vader and the command crews of Executor and the accompanying Star Destroyers. Admiral Motti on the first Death Star also did not appear to be afraid of Vader, though as he also comes off as a bit of an idiot it's not clear if Vader doesn't have a reputation for summary executions yet or if he's just that stupid.


Actually, Endor was the moon. We are never told what the parent planet is named.
Based on movie dialogue, that's not actually true, strictly speaking. We're told that the Death Star is under construction over the "forest moon of Endor," which Palpatine refers to as the "sanctuary moon" at least once. "Forest moon of Endor" could be naming the moon, but it could also be naming the planet to which the moon belongs. Of course, "Endor" and "Sanctuary Moon" are the only proper nouns we see in the movies in relation to the forest moon, so naturally people latch on to those as the proper names for the moon, but based on what's said in the movies? The forest moon of Endor is never unambiguously stated to be Endor rather than a moon of Endor, at least not that I can recall.


The Imperials could have done a more effective surprise strike with TIE Bombers deployed from afar.
Despite the Abrams-Disney movie and many old (and probably new) EU sources making use of TIE Fighters and other TIE-series vehicles as atmospheric craft, I have serious doubts that any of the TIEs, or really any of the starfighters, seen in the original movies were ever intended to be used within an atmosphere. At a glance, TIE-series craft appear to have worse aerodynamic qualities than even Y-Wings, and X-Wings, one of the two most aerodynamic-looking starfighters seen in the original trilogy, are not used for atmospheric combat the one time in the original trilogy where it might have made sense for them to be used in such a role (Hoth, particularly if you believe the EU stuff about X-Wing laser cannons being sufficiently powerful to penetrate AT-AT armor despite Snowspeeder blasters being incapable of the same; you could also perhaps argue for Endor, but there's this minor issue of getting through the shield to perform an airstrike on the generator; the fact that an infiltration team was chosen to take down the shield instead of an airstrike or orbital bombardment, the fact that the infiltration team's shuttle requested deactivation of the shield prior to landing on the moon, and the fact that the Rebel fleet makes a very rapid turn when they decide that the shield remains active all suggest that an airstrike using starfighters was not a viable alternative) and the Rebellion made use of what appears to have been a somewhat-specialized atmospheric craft instead.

Presumably, the Empire would normally have made use of craft actually designed for atmospheric operations. Possibly the shield at Hoth prevented this, or perhaps the Star Destroyer squadron Vader had didn't have any despite having forces for ground assaults. Not really something that we can answer based on what was in the movies, though I will note that hovering vehicles had already been established in the previous movie and may have made more sense for the terrain but were not seen to be used during the assault.

[Jayngfet]

The thing about Hoth is that it's so cold a lot of the complex mechanics in a starfighter get shut down. Retrofitted snowspeeders were ok, but the x-wings couldn't do much more than land and take off in those conditions.

As for just blasting the installation, presumably the empire could get them on sensors and throw up shielding or other defenses and then they'd need to weave through walker fire from the ground as well as punch through other emplacements to hit a hard target.

People forget that the planetary shield wasn't just the one hut we saw, it was a vast radio tower that was defended and Han and Leia were leading a charge against one internal weak point under an armored hull. And piercing through a planetary shield generator point blank with a couple of proton torpedos while dodging laser fire from the ground is much harder than just blasting a few storm troopers going in stealthily and setting explosive charges.

[Nerd-o-rama]

The characterization of Vader's relations with his direct subordinates appears to change a fair bit between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. That officer accompanying Vader on the Tantive IV who seemed somewhat strongly opposed to holding Princess Leia captive didn't seem remotely afraid that Vader might execute him, which implies a rather different relationship than appears to be the case between Vader and the command crews of Executor and the accompanying Star Destroyers. Admiral Motti on the first Death Star also did not appear to be afraid of Vader, though as he also comes off as a bit of an idiot it's not clear if Vader doesn't have a reputation for summary executions yet or if he's just that stupid.

The difference between Vader in ANH and Vader in ESB is two-fold:

1) In ANH, Vader has a man as powerful and influential than he is, a fellow hero of the Clone Wars, and someone who isn't on the Emperor's permanent ****list for being a rival for the title of Sith Lord "holding his leash", as Leia put it. Motti only lives because Tarkin calls Vader off, if you'll recall. As of ESB, Tarkin's dead and Vader's been given 100% free reign to do as he sees fit with his ludicrously overgunned Star Destroyer squadron.
2) Vader has lived the last 20 years of his life in constant physical, spiritual, and emotional agony and is generally speaking a walking homicide machine. He still manages to get more pissed off and emotionally imbalanced after the Death Star's destruction than he was before. He's that mad, and he takes it out on his direct subordinates as soon as he's able.

Also, based on Legends information, Vader actually respects his personal stormtroopers, being frontline fighters like himself rather than Chair Force commanders who never leave the bridge, and the fellow from the opening of ANH backtalking him is a stormtrooper captain.




Despite the Abrams-Disney movie and many old (and probably new) EU sources making use of TIE Fighters and other TIE-series vehicles as atmospheric craft, I have serious doubts that any of the TIEs, or really any of the starfighters, seen in the original movies were ever intended to be used within an atmosphere. At a glance, TIE-series craft appear to have worse aerodynamic qualities than even Y-Wings, and X-Wings, one of the two most aerodynamic-looking starfighters seen in the original trilogy, are not used for atmospheric combat the one time in the original trilogy where it might have made sense for them to be used in such a role (Hoth, particularly if you believe the EU stuff about X-Wing laser cannons being sufficiently powerful to penetrate AT-AT armor despite Snowspeeder blasters being incapable of the same; you could also perhaps argue for Endor, but there's this minor issue of getting through the shield to perform an airstrike on the generator; the fact that an infiltration team was chosen to take down the shield instead of an airstrike or orbital bombardment, the fact that the infiltration team's shuttle requested deactivation of the shield prior to landing on the moon, and the fact that the Rebel fleet makes a very rapid turn when they decide that the shield remains active all suggest that an airstrike using starfighters was not a viable alternative) and the Rebellion made use of what appears to have been a somewhat-specialized atmospheric craft instead.

Presumably, the Empire would normally have made use of craft actually designed for atmospheric operations. Possibly the shield at Hoth prevented this, or perhaps the Star Destroyer squadron Vader had didn't have any despite having forces for ground assaults. Not really something that we can answer based on what was in the movies, though I will note that hovering vehicles had already been established in the previous movie and may have made more sense for the terrain but were not seen to be used during the assault.

I think worrying about aerodynamic qualities, or any sort of limitations imposed by normal physics, in Star Wars is a lost cause, particularly when the atmospheric use of starfighters is so ubiquitous in the non-movie content. Also, X-Wings and Y-Wings take off and land in atmospheres with no problem (barring Luke's misadventures on Dagobah), so rather than assuming X-Wings can't fight in the atmosphere, you'd want to look at an alternate explanation for their non-presence at the Battle of Hoth, such as "they were saving fighters and fuel to escort the transports/make sure the expensive starfighters got safely off the planet by using expendable speeders against the walkers", which I believe is the Legends explanation.

[Aeson]

so rather than assuming X-Wings can't fight in the atmosphere, you'd want to look at an alternate explanation for their non-presence at the Battle of Hoth, such as "they were saving fighters and fuel to escort the transports/make sure the expensive starfighters got safely off the planet by using expendable speeders against the walkers", which I believe is the Legends explanation.
They were using the X-Wing's pilots to fly the snowspeeders. Pilots are generally less expendable than equipment. Besides which, if you're going to have the same pilots fly (some) of the escort fighters and the air cover for the ground battle, why not just have the fighters up in the first place, if they're capable of performing well enough within the atmosphere? It'll take less time than having to have the pilots fly the speeders back to wherever the starfighters are. It's also not a significantly greater risk of losing the fighter than you'd be running by relying on the pilot flying air cover to be able to return in time to fly his or her fighter out with the transport; the fighter is not packed up on the transport and you're in a hurry to take off in your departure window, so you're not likely to be able to spare the time to get the fighter packed up if its designated pilot cannot return for it.


Also, X-Wings and Y-Wings take off and land in atmospheres with no problem
Being able to take off and land within an atmosphere is by no means the same as being able to effectively fight within an atmosphere.


particularly when the atmospheric use of starfighters is so ubiquitous in the non-movie content.
And so very not present within the movies. Atmospheric combat craft and starfighters as seen within the original and prequel trilogy are generally almost completely separate groups of vehicles, from what we are shown. I can't recall ever seeing an LAAT participating in a space battle, or droid starfighters, N-1s, X-Wings, A-Wings, B-Wings, Y-Wings, V-Wings, ARC-170s, or TIEs providing air cover over a ground battle on a relatively normal planet, until the Disney movie. Some of the starfighters can probably do alright inside an atmosphere, but from what we see in the original and prequel trilogies it'd appear that everyone would rather use purpose-built atmospheric fightercraft than starfighters when fighting within an atmosphere.

I would also point out that the Legends/EU material tends to have a lot of inconsistencies and is frequently difficult at best to support by way of what's shown within the movies, and can be contradictory.

[Rakaydos]

in Clone Wars, Vulture fighters and hyena bombers are shown in atmospheriv combat

[Dienekes]

Also, based on Legends information, Vader actually respects his personal stormtroopers, being frontline fighters like himself rather than Chair Force commanders who never leave the bridge, and the fellow from the opening of ANH backtalking him is a stormtrooper captain.

Legends info is of course outdated. I remember in the somewhat recently released new canon comic of Vader a trooper sees him without his helmet and reacts in shock, and Vader nonchalantly kills him then proceeds to lead the battlefield.

Vader cares about no one. The rather weird attempt to soften him up in the old EU is pretty much gone.

[hamishspence]

(some EU sources make the claim that the Death Star is 160km in diameter, which is already considerably larger by volume than the entire combined Rebel and Imperial fleet present for the battle, but if you take what you see in the movies to be more canonical than what is written in the additional material, it is easy to see that the Death Star as depicted should have a considerably larger diameter than 160km as the Death Star's horizon as seen in the Executor's crash scene appears nearly or completely flat).
The Death Star's size relative to the Forest Moon seems extremely inconsistent - some shots make it look 1/11 the diameter, some 1/30 the diameter or even less.

The "newcanon" has gone with 160km (and 4900km for the Forest Moon, so, DS2 is 1/30 Forest Moon's diameter). Chalk all other shots that imply it's larger (especially the Executor crash) to "prop issues".


We're told that the Death Star is under construction over the "forest moon of Endor," which Palpatine refers to as the "sanctuary moon" at least once. "Forest moon of Endor" could be naming the moon, but it could also be naming the planet to which the moon belongs. Of course, "Endor" and "Sanctuary Moon" are the only proper nouns we see in the movies in relation to the forest moon, so naturally people latch on to those as the proper names for the moon, but based on what's said in the movies? The forest moon of Endor is never unambiguously stated to be Endor rather than a moon of Endor, at least not that I can recall.
Once, Vader says "landed on Endor" with reference to the Rebel shuttle.

[VoxRationis]

The big question is whether the shield goes all the way down to ground level - forcing walkers to walk through it - or whether it's more like an "umbrella" with a gap underneath.

The illustrated cross-section books I got as a kid, though likely non-canon now, state that shields tend to fry hovering craft that try to move through them, but having a direct connection to ground allows walkers to move through. This would imply that it goes all the way down and the walkers touch the shield, but are simply unaffected by it.

[hamishspence]

While the Incredible Cross Sections books are currently Legends - it's been announced that the Complete Locations book (same style but for battles, bases, and buildings rather than ships) is going to be rereleased and updated for the newcanon- with The Force Awakens locations added.


With luck, maybe the ICS books will eventually receive the same update?

There's also an upcoming newcanon book "Star Wars: On The Front Lines" which focuses on tactics, weapons, and armour used in pivotal battles. Perhaps the Battle of Naboo will get a page or two.

[Hopeless]

Just a thought but what with the new Comics Tagge survived ANH and the Emperor appointed him as Vader's superior.
Maybe Ozzel reported to him as his agent and Vader immediately killed him like he does other people reporting to Tagge as a means of securing his agenda?

[hamishspence]

We'll have to wait and see - but I predict Tagge will end up dying between Vader Down and TESB - with Vader returning to being portrayed as supreme military commander.

[factotum]

but if you take what you see in the movies to be more canonical than what is written in the additional material, it is easy to see that the Death Star as depicted should have a considerably larger diameter than 160km as the Death Star's horizon as seen in the Executor's crash scene appears nearly or completely flat).


That's a bad scene to be basing any sort of measurements on, because they actually filmed that on a completely flat model of the Death Star's surface! As hamishspence points out, the representation of the Death Star's size and altitude above the planet is very inconsistent within the movie, so you could make an argument for a whole range of sizes being correct if you cherry-pick the right scenes.

It almost seems like SF movies and TV series have the dramatic equivalent of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle--you can't ever know how big something is or how fast it is travelling at the same time. :smallwink:

[Nerd-o-rama]

They were using the X-Wing's pilots to fly the snowspeeders. Pilots are generally less expendable than equipment. Besides which, if you're going to have the same pilots fly (some) of the escort fighters and the air cover for the ground battle, why not just have the fighters up in the first place, if they're capable of performing well enough within the atmosphere? It'll take less time than having to have the pilots fly the speeders back to wherever the starfighters are. It's also not a significantly greater risk of losing the fighter than you'd be running by relying on the pilot flying air cover to be able to return in time to fly his or her fighter out with the transport; the fighter is not packed up on the transport and you're in a hurry to take off in your departure window, so you're not likely to be able to spare the time to get the fighter packed up if its designated pilot cannot return for it.

I'd argue with the first point here when you're talking about an insurgent group with very minimal and spread-out manufacturing capabilities. The X-Wing is the best space-superiority starfighter in the galaxy barring some non-movie Imperial wunderwaffen, and the rebels can probably recruit a decent pilot faster than they can furtively build a new X-Wing. They don't. Exactly have a lot of training standards.

Logistical logic problems I'm willing to chalk up to Lucas and Kasdan not thinking too hard about the background half of the military deployments. Also, fundamentally, the snowspeeders exist to give the Battle of Hoth more visual uniqueness and to create more merchandise. I've rather lost the thread of why I'm arguing about this, actually, sorry.


Being able to take off and land within an atmosphere is by no means the same as being able to effectively fight within an atmosphere.

Agreed, but I would count it as evidence of the possibility, at least.


And so very not present within the movies. Atmospheric combat craft and starfighters as seen within the original and prequel trilogy are generally almost completely separate groups of vehicles, from what we are shown. I can't recall ever seeing an LAAT participating in a space battle, or droid starfighters, N-1s, X-Wings, A-Wings, B-Wings, Y-Wings, V-Wings, ARC-170s, or TIEs providing air cover over a ground battle on a relatively normal planet, until the Disney movie. Some of the starfighters can probably do alright inside an atmosphere, but from what we see in the original and prequel trilogies it'd appear that everyone would rather use purpose-built atmospheric fightercraft than starfighters when fighting within an atmosphere.

I would also point out that the Legends/EU material tends to have a lot of inconsistencies and is frequently difficult at best to support by way of what's shown within the movies, and can be contradictory.

Well, you're also throwing out The Force Awakens here, so I'm not sure what else I'm supposed to argue from when I already admitted you don't see much atmospheric starfighter use in the first six films.


Legends info is of course outdated. I remember in the somewhat recently released new canon comic of Vader a trooper sees him without his helmet and reacts in shock, and Vader nonchalantly kills him then proceeds to lead the battlefield.

Vader cares about no one. The rather weird attempt to soften him up in the old EU is pretty much gone.

That particular bit was partly to sympathize Vader (and synthesize his character with the brash young frontline commander Anakin Skywalker is in Clone Wars), but I think mostly to pump up the reputation of his personal stormtrooper legion, the 501st, who were the Legends mascots for "Imperials who are actually competent".

[Peelee]

That particular bit was partly to sympathize Vader (and synthesize his character with the brash young frontline commander Anakin Skywalker is in Clone Wars), but I think mostly to pump up the reputation of his personal stormtrooper legion, the 501st, who were the Legends mascots for "Imperials who are actually competent".

I prefer to call those "most of the Imperials in the films."

[Dienekes]

That particular bit was partly to sympathize Vader (and synthesize his character with the brash young frontline commander Anakin Skywalker is in Clone Wars), but I think mostly to pump up the reputation of his personal stormtrooper legion, the 501st, who were the Legends mascots for "Imperials who are actually competent".

Soldiers can be competent with or without the apathy of their superiors. That doesn't make the whole "No Vader actually cares about these guys" part any less weird and completely at odds with the Vader seen in the movies. The one who was willing to sacrifice entire transport ships filled with soldiers by sending them into a dense asteroid field because he did not give one thought about their well being.

That said, despite that I can see a sort of cult of Vader forming with the soldier ranks because he was a frontline commander. The vast majority would not meet him in person and would have no reason to risk his ire if they did.

[Rogar Demonblud]

The novelization version:

*mutters balefully about sci-fi writers forgetting space is three dimensional*


The thing about Hoth is that it's so cold a lot of the complex mechanics in a starfighter get shut down. Retrofitted snowspeeders were ok, but the x-wings couldn't do much more than land and take off in those conditions.

*snarls about the differences in temperatures between a planet with a breathable atmosphere and interplanetary space*

They used the T-47s because they weren't going to be able to load them (see scene with Luke and med droid). If you're going to lose them anyway, attrit them out in battle so as to save the more valuable stuff for later.

[Mando Knight]

*snarls about the differences in temperatures between a planet with a breathable atmosphere and interplanetary space*

And the difference between convection and radiation? Cooling your spaceship can be as much a major issue as keeping it warm, particularly if it has relatively large high-thrust engines attached to it.

On the other hand, who knows the temperature of The Galaxy's aether? Han seems to do fine out there while wearing roughly the same gear as the warmer interior of the Hoth base.

[Nerd-o-rama]

I prefer to call those "most of the Imperials in the films."

Imps get a bad rap, especially Stormtroopers, but you have to admit, there's a lot of strategic failures on a lot of levels going on to give the Rebel Alliance the upper hands they need.

I mean, they're far and away superior to the capitalist dilettantes playing with their robotic toys we got in the prequels, but the Empire is extensive proof that living in a militarist culture does not actually make your military more effective, just better-funded. If anything, I'd give more competence credit to the First Order, who lack an entire galaxy's worth of resources and actually have to fight smarter and learn from the Empire's mistakes.

[Peelee]

*mutters balefully about sci-fi writers forgetting space is three dimensional*
What, because he said "pull up" and they pulled left?

Imps get a bad rap, especially Stormtroopers, but you have to admit, there's a lot of strategic failures on a lot of levels going on to give the Rebel Alliance the upper hands they need.

I mean, they're far and away superior to the capitalist dilettantes playing with their robotic toys we got in the prequels, but the Empire is extensive proof that living in a militarist culture does not actually make your military more effective, just better-funded. If anything, I'd give more competence credit to the First Order, who lack an entire galaxy's worth of resources and actually have to fight smarter and learn from the Empire's mistakes.

Most mistakes were made at the top of the chain of command (Tarkin, Emperor, what have you). In the films, the Stormtroopers are consistently portrayed as a competent, highly effective military force up until the Ewoks came out.

[Nerd-o-rama]

They also miss what should have been a fairly easy capture at the end of ESB, but I usually chalk that up to "not enough boots on the ground" and the knowledge that they did have two or three extra layers of dragnet to keep hands on the Millennium Falcon even if the heroes did get to it and lift off.

Endor, on the other hand, was FUBAR in the most literal senses, mostly because for some reason the troopers deployed there seemed to be wholly unfamiliar with jungle/forest combat and were relying on armored support that shouldn't have been nearly so decisive.

Then again it's a literal and intentional invocation of the Vietnam War, so it pays to remember that seemingly-stranger things have happened in real life, especially in asymmetrical warfare.

[Peelee]

They also miss what should have been a fairly easy capture at the end of ESB, but I usually chalk that up to "not enough boots on the ground" and the knowledge that they did have two or three extra layers of dragnet to keep hands on the Millennium Falcon even if the heroes did get to it and lift off.

Endor, on the other hand, was FUBAR in the most literal senses, mostly because for some reason the troopers deployed there seemed to be wholly unfamiliar with jungle/forest combat and were relying on armored support that shouldn't have been nearly so decisive.

Then again it's a literal and intentional invocation of the Vietnam War, so it pays to remember that seemingly-stranger things have happened in real life, especially in asymmetrical warfare.

In ESB, which easy capture are you referring to? If you mean the Falcon, the hyperdrive was sabotaged in order to capture them, and this was a ridiculous situation when they could have just locked it down or towed it away, but the instructions clearly came from Vader. If you mean the Cloud City security surrounding the stormtroopers... I don't really know what could have been done to prevent that, really.

[Nerd-o-rama]

I meant capturing Leia's group after Cloud City Security flipped on them, yes. In both getting cornered and letting the heroes escape, though, it's pretty clearly a situation of being a token guard force rather than fully occupying the city (which would have tipped their hand immediately). They planned contingencies as well as they could, but there's still no real reason all the heroes made it off the planet alive other than "that's the story", as opposed to the Death Star where the stormtroopers let them go or Hoth where they only escaped through dint of having a planned fallback.

[Tvtyrant]

I think it is also important to note that Vader's job is not in the navy. He is actually the Emperor's hitman and enforcer, he just ends up in charge of the fleet because the actual man for the job died on board the Death Star. It can be argued that he was only on board the death star to watch Tarkin for signs of rebellion in the first place, as the captain of the first superstar destroyer they made immediately began plotting to take over the Empire.

[Peelee]

I meant capturing Leia's group after Cloud City Security flipped on them, yes. In both getting cornered and letting the heroes escape, though, it's pretty clearly a situation of being a token guard force rather than fully occupying the city (which would have tipped their hand immediately). They planned contingencies as well as they could, but there's still no real reason all the heroes made it off the planet alive other than "that's the story", as opposed to the Death Star where the stormtroopers let them go or Hoth where they only escaped through dint of having a planned fallback.

Ah. Yeah, I got nothin' for that. My best rationalization is that the whole city was taken by the Empire, and the troops got complacent, but that doesn't exactly fit with the "ultra-competent military force" bit.


I think it is also important to note that Vader's job is not in the navy. He is actually the Emperor's hitman and enforcer, he just ends up in charge of the fleet because the actual man for the job died on board the Death Star. It can be argued that he was only on board the death star to watch Tarkin for signs of rebellion in the first place, as the captain of the first superstar destroyer they made immediately began plotting to take over the Empire.
Ummmm... Tarkin wasn't in charge of the fleet. He was in charge of the Death Star, but that didn't make him the supreme commander of the Imperial Navy or anything.

[TheThan]

What, because he said "pull up" and they pulled left?

“up”, and “down” are relative terms in space. Since there is no actual ground to contrast up and down with after all.


In the films, the Stormtroopers are consistently portrayed as a competent, highly effective military force up until the Ewoks came out.

Even then the Ewoks basically got their furry rear ends kicked. Sure they had a couple of good surprises here and there but the end result is that the stormtroopers started crushing them. It wasn’t until Chewbacca got a hold of a walker that the rebels turned the tides on the imperial troops.


Then again it's a literal and intentional invocation of the Vietnam War, so it pays to remember that seemingly-stranger things have happened in real life, especially in asymmetrical warfare.

Evidence? I’ve always assumed it was because they wanted the cute furry little teddy bears to win. Causation and correlation are not the same thing. I could write an essay that shows that starwars is an allegory for the American Revolution. That doesn’t make it true even though there are plenty of similarities.


[edit]

Ummmm... Tarkin wasn't in charge of the fleet. He was in charge of the Death Star, but that didn't make him the supreme commander of the Imperial Navy or anything.

Tarkin was a Grand Moff; which is sort of like a military governor. According to Wookipedia, a grand Moff is number 6 in the civilian chain of command. It also looks like a grand Moff ranks above a general or admiral militarily. It’s safe to assume that Tarkin and Vader had about the same amount of military and civil influence.

However that’s not what we get from the dialog “Governor Tarkin, I should have expected to find you holding Vader’s leash”. This suggests that Tarkin actually out-ranks Vader and can boss him around.

Since the empire is a military run governing body; there’s an uncomfortable amount of cross over between military and civilian leadership.

[Peelee]

Tarkin was a Grand Moff; which is sort of like a military governor. According to Wookipedia, a grand Moff is number 6 in the civilian chain of command. It also looks like a grand Moff ranks above a general or admiral militarily. It’s safe to assume that Tarkin and Vader had about the same amount of military and civil influence.

However that’s not what we get from the dialog “Governor Tarkin, I should have expected to find you holding Vader’s leash”. This suggests that Tarkin actually out-ranks Vader and can boss him around.

Since the empire is a military run governing body; there’s an uncomfortable amount of cross over between military and civilian leadership.

Yeah, but Moff has always been kind of a nebulous and not-too-defined term SW lore. It's basically as you said, a regional governor. Grand Moff was effectively invented for Tarkin, but even then he was still restricted in power to vast oversectors, (Tarkin, was in charge of the Outer Rim) whereas Grand Admirals could operate freely thoughout the Empire. Vader was basically an extention of the Emperor's will, an executor for his wishes, and had no formal rank in the military or civilian government. I'm of the opinion that Vader honored Tarkin's wishes as a matter of respect to him (both on his own behalf and also the Emperor's), and Leia's comment was more of a jab at Vader willingly obeying anyone but the Emperor. That girl had some guts, I tells ya.

[hamishspence]

In the EU, Toward the end of the Clone Wars there were 20 Moffs - each ruling a hefty chunk of the galaxy as an Oversector. Eventually though, Moffs ended up ruling Sectors - with Grand Moffs ruling Oversectors. Tarkin was the first, but far from the only one.

So - the Moffs basically got demoted, with the new Grand Moffs filling their role.

[Mando Knight]

That girl had some guts, I tells ya.

Well, her parents were some of the gutsiest kids of their day, so it's not that surprising.

[Aeson]

However that’s not what we get from the dialog “Governor Tarkin, I should have expected to find you holding Vader’s leash”. This suggests that Tarkin actually out-ranks Vader and can boss him around.
Personally, I get the feeling that Leia said that to irritate Vader, rather than because Vader is actually out-ranked by Tarkin. Vader's position on the first Death Star seems to me more along the lines of a VIP guest than along the lines of a subordinate or of a visiting lower-ranking officer.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Evidence? I’ve always assumed it was because they wanted the cute furry little teddy bears to win. Causation and correlation are not the same thing. I could write an essay that shows that starwars is an allegory for the American Revolution. That doesn’t make it true even though there are plenty of similarities.

Eh, the interview I thought was the source for this actually isn't, and the comment is apocryphal (or maybe it's part of the same supposed commentary that determined Palpatine was based on Richard Nixon). My bad.

However, erase the Vietnam comparison from your mind for a second and note that Lucas was specific enough (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIIukEukrOA) in wanting the Empire to be defeated by a primitive culture that he actually made up the Ewoks for the role when he realized that he'd established Wookiees as technologically adept. Regardless of any contemporary political comparisons, it's pretty clear that the intent of clever "savages" the Empire would dismiss as a non-threat being pivotal to the battle was baked into his idea for the story from the start.

[VoxRationis]

I meant capturing Leia's group after Cloud City Security flipped on them, yes. In both getting cornered and letting the heroes escape, though, it's pretty clearly a situation of being a token guard force rather than fully occupying the city (which would have tipped their hand immediately). They planned contingencies as well as they could, but there's still no real reason all the heroes made it off the planet alive other than "that's the story", as opposed to the Death Star where the stormtroopers let them go or Hoth where they only escaped through dint of having a planned fallback.

Don't forget that the stormtroopers were starting to show a lack of effectiveness as early as Mos Eisley in A New Hope. They, the forces of a brutal dictatorship, ignore a simple locked door when searching door-to-door for a couple of fugitive droids. Then they can't shoot straight during the hangar fight scene (well before they could have had any "let them go" orders, since no one in the upper echelons really knew or cared about the non-droid protagonists at this point).

Regarding Vader's place in the Imperial hierarchy: Vader is consistently referred to as "Lord" but has no other title, and we don't see any other Imperials with that title. He also seems to jump from command to command. In the original novelization, he is referred to a "a" Dark Lord of the Sith, with the implication that there are more running about somewhere (clearly something that got changed later). From what I can see, he seems to be in a very short parallel hierarchy to the military chain of command, and his position allows him to step in to that chain of command wherever appropriate (the fact that the Emperor knows him personally and is watching him closely is probably the only oversight he is judged to require). Notably, the forces he takes command of seem to include their normal highest officer for those forces (i.e., the fleet attacking Hoth was commanded by an Admiral, who could probably have overseen the attack on his own, had Vader not been there). He seems somewhat like a Spectre from Mass Effect: He answers directly to the highest galactic authority and has carte blanche to kill people as he sees fit, so people tend to listen to his commands, even if he isn't technically their commanding officer.

[Peelee]

Don't forget that the stormtroopers were starting to show a lack of effectiveness as early as Mos Eisley in A New Hope. They, the forces of a brutal dictatorship, ignore a simple locked door when searching door-to-door for a couple of fugitive droids. Then they can't shoot straight during the hangar fight scene (well before they could have had any "let them go" orders, since no one in the upper echelons really knew or cared about the non-droid protagonists at this point).

What you see as a lack of effectiveness, I see as paying at the very least lip service to civil rights and a warrant-less search in the middle of a city known for its violent inhabitants. Also, they barely had a few seconds to shoot at Han, and those were mostly spent moving ducking behind cover from the 1.) armed person, and b.) much more heavily armed ship.

[VoxRationis]

What you see as a lack of effectiveness, I see as paying at the very least lip service to civil rights and a warrant-less search in the middle of a city known for its violent inhabitants. Also, they barely had a few seconds to shoot at Han, and those were mostly spent moving ducking behind cover from the 1.) armed person, and b.) much more heavily armed ship.

This is the same unit of stormtroopers that butchered civilians for having sold droids of interest to the Empire, even though said civilians had no idea of the importance of the droids. They don't pay lip service to civil rights, particularly not on Tatooine, which is such a hellhole that no one has ever had civil rights.

[Gnoman]

This is the same unit of stormtroopers that butchered civilians for having sold droids of interest to the Empire, even though said civilians had no idea of the importance of the droids. They don't pay lip service to civil rights, particularly not on Tatooine, which is such a hellhole that no one has ever had civil rights.

There is a huge difference between being heavy-handed against isolated farmers and poorly armed aboriginals and being heavy-handed in the middle of a city full of ambush locations and well-armed scofflaws. Blast your way in on the wrong crime lord and you very well might be stuck in the middle of a running firefight until you escape the city, and nobody's going the find the droids then.

More importantly, most droids we see in the films are much less independent and much more obedient than R2D2 and C3P0 (who, I remind you, was reluctant to get into the life pod because droids aren't allowed in there). Trying to fulfill a mission given by their owner is plausible, but locking doors behind them and deliberately evading pursuit is probably highly unusual droid behavior.

[Rogar Demonblud]

What, because he said "pull up" and they pulled left?

No, because the author has Star Destroyers to the right and the left, the Death Star in front, and says "They're trapped!"

Bull Puckey.

They can go backwards out of the trap (which is yet another attempt at Cannae by armchair generals), or they can flip 90 degrees and either go up or down to escape the trap. The only reason the Rebel Fleet was caught is because Ackbar listened to Lando's plea for time.

[Mando Knight]

They can go backwards out of the trap (which is yet another attempt at Cannae by armchair generals), or they can flip 90 degrees and either go up or down to escape the trap. The only reason the Rebel Fleet was caught is because Ackbar listened to Lando's plea for time.

And because the Death Star is revealed to be operational in short order, the fleet is quickly hounded by TIEs, and they can't jump back to lightspeed that close to Endor.

And because they've only got one shot to make this work before no system is safe from the Death Star.

[Aeson]

No, because the author has Star Destroyers to the right and the left, the Death Star in front, and says "They're trapped!"
Note that Ackbar does not say that the Rebel fleet is trapped; the dialogue is "it's a trap," not "we're trapped." A large Imperial fleet was waiting for the Rebel fleet at the Death Star when Rebel intelligence had been expecting relatively minor resistance, and there were indications that the Empire knew that the fleet was coming as the Empire was jamming the Rebel fleet's sensors very soon after the fleet arrived, or possibly since before the fleet arrived. Concluding that the Death Star was a trap is not unreasonable, even before the Death Star is known to be operational.

Also remember that the Rebel fleet only becomes aware of the Imperial fleet during or slightly after the turn away from the Death Star is completed, and that this turn appears to have oriented the Rebel fleet more or less directly towards the Imperial fleet. Turning away from the Imperial fleet is going to cost time, possibly enough for the rapidly-approaching Imperial fleet to catch up to the Rebel fleet before it can get away. The Imperial fleet is also on an approach vector such that the fleet would likely need only relatively minor course corrections to intercept the Rebel fleet no matter which direction it runs, and presumably has a significant velocity advantage at the time that the Rebels become aware of it. The Rebels may not technically be surrounded, but it is entirely possible that by the time they're aware of the Imperial fleet they are not in a position which would allow them to escape the Imperial fleet without engaging it for at least a short period of time, even with the generally very high accelerations of which Star Wars ships appear capable.

[TheThan]

Eh, the interview I thought was the source for this actually isn't, and the comment is apocryphal (or maybe it's part of the same supposed commentary that determined Palpatine was based on Richard Nixon). My bad.

However, erase the Vietnam comparison from your mind for a second and note that Lucas was specific enough (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIIukEukrOA) in wanting the Empire to be defeated by a primitive culture that he actually made up the Ewoks for the role when he realized that he'd established Wookiees as technologically adept. Regardless of any contemporary political comparisons, it's pretty clear that the intent of clever "savages" the Empire would dismiss as a non-threat being pivotal to the battle was baked into his idea for the story from the start.

Yeah and the whole reason why he used a wookiee for Han’s copilot is because he didn’t think he was going to get to make parts II and III. So he might as well use his favorite walking carpets for his one film. It’s not a terrible idea, its just that he underestimated his film. oops.

Lucas accidently wrote himself into a corner because he assumed he wasn’t going to be able to finish his movie thrilogy. When he got to Return of the Jedi; he needed a way for the rebels to win on the ground; they’re so heavily outnumbered that they can’t possibly survive, even if they blew the shield generator. So he had to come up with a somewhat plausible excuse. How about recruiting the locals? They need to be primitive and animalistic looking; I’ll make them huge and call them wookiees.

(Years later). Well I need to do some re-writing. My primitive wookiee locals can’t work. Since I created Chewie and established wookiees as being tech savvy. How about I just cut them in half and call them… Ewoks. That’ll work.

I’ve always felt the Ewok’s involvement was more like the Native Americans in the French and Indian war, or the American Revolutionary War. The natives getting involved in a war between two foreign powers (ok this making a GIGANTIC simplification here). Not going to lie, this also feeds into my American Revolution allegory.

[Bulldog Psion]

Interestingly, Vader's murderous actions against his own officer corps would probably cause additional incompetence, if real-life military history is anything to go by.

Both the Carthaginians and the Incas executed generals who lost a battle or even -- in the case of the Incas -- deviated from orders, even if the deviation led to success.

In both cases, the result was eventually a military that was reluctant to engage in battle unless the outcome was almost certainly favorable, and that was very slow and unwieldy because generals were so cautious. The threat of death didn't induce perfectionism: it led to lumbering, wooden caution.

Which is a good part of why the Romans eventually destroyed Carthage.

So, Vader's "death by choking" stuff would tend to make the Imperial Navy botch more things, not less. But then, there's no sign anywhere that Vader was ever particularly smart, just powerful and vicious. :smallwink:

[TheThan]

Interestingly, Vader's murderous actions against his own officer corps would probably cause additional incompetence, if real-life military history is anything to go by.

Both the Carthaginians and the Incas executed generals who lost a battle or even -- in the case of the Incas -- deviated from orders, even if the deviation led to success.

In both cases, the result was eventually a military that was reluctant to engage in battle unless the outcome was almost certainly favorable, and that was very slow and unwieldy because generals were so cautious. The threat of death didn't induce perfectionism: it led to lumbering, wooden caution.

Which is a good part of why the Romans eventually destroyed Carthage.

So, Vader's "death by choking" stuff would tend to make the Imperial Navy botch more things, not less. But then, there's no sign anywhere that Vader was ever particularly smart, just powerful and vicious. :smallwink:

Basically they were terrified into inaction. This is what makes Grand Admiral Thrawn such a beloved character. He encouraged his personnel to strive for excellence and rewarded it accordingly. Simple failure, while problematic, was not grounds for execution. However the failure to act was.

[VoxRationis]

Interestingly, Vader's murderous actions against his own officer corps would probably cause additional incompetence, if real-life military history is anything to go by.

Both the Carthaginians and the Incas executed generals who lost a battle or even -- in the case of the Incas -- deviated from orders, even if the deviation led to success.

In both cases, the result was eventually a military that was reluctant to engage in battle unless the outcome was almost certainly favorable, and that was very slow and unwieldy because generals were so cautious. The threat of death didn't induce perfectionism: it led to lumbering, wooden caution.

Which is a good part of why the Romans eventually destroyed Carthage.

So, Vader's "death by choking" stuff would tend to make the Imperial Navy botch more things, not less. But then, there's no sign anywhere that Vader was ever particularly smart, just powerful and vicious. :smallwink:

"Look, staff competence will never improve so long as you keep killing people for making mistakes." (http://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0733.html)

[KillianHawkeye]

Lucas accidently wrote himself into a corner because he assumed he wasn’t going to be able to finish his movie thrilogy. When he got to Return of the Jedi; he needed a way for the rebels to win on the ground; they’re so heavily outnumbered that they can’t possibly survive, even if they blew the shield generator. So he had to come up with a somewhat plausible excuse. How about recruiting the locals? They need to be primitive and animalistic looking; I’ll make them huge and call them wookies.

(Years later). Well I need to do some re-writing. My primitive wookiee locals can’t work. Since I created Chewie and established wookiees as being tech savvy. How about I just cut them in half and call them… Ewoks. That’ll work.

I never realized this until now, but even the word "Ewok" is basically just "Wookie" with half the vowels cut out. :smallconfused::smallamused:

[Peelee]

Every time you guys misspell "wookiee," a small part of me dies.

[TheThan]

Every time you guys misspell "wookiee," a small part of me dies.

my apologies. I try make sure my spelling is correct. Occasionally something slips through though.

[hamishspence]

They can go backwards out of the trap (which is yet another attempt at Cannae by armchair generals), or they can flip 90 degrees and either go up or down to escape the trap. The only reason the Rebel Fleet was caught is because Ackbar listened to Lando's plea for time.

According to the newcanon short story The Levers of Power (found in the Rise of the Empire omnibus) - the Empire had Interdictor cruisers - so, getting out of their range would have taken quite some time.

[factotum]

According to the newcanon short story The Levers of Power (found in the Rise of the Empire omnibus) - the Empire had Interdictor cruisers - so, getting out of their range would have taken quite some time.

There's a screenshot I've seen of the fleet as seen from the Emperor's window in the movie, and there's definitely a ship there which is larger than all the regular Star Destroyers but much smaller than the Executor. We never see that ship close up, but it could be the Interdictor mentioned there. On the other hand, Admiral Ackbar seemed to think they could escape the trap easily enough, and it was only Londo persuading him to give Han more time* that meant they stayed.

* which I always thought was bogus anyway. You arrive, you find the Imperials know you're coming *and* the shield your infiltration squad was sent to destroy is still very much active? Surely the logical conclusion is that the squad got caught and spilled all they knew, so you should get the heck out of there ASAP.

[hamishspence]

There's a screenshot I've seen of the fleet as seen from the Emperor's window in the movie, and there's definitely a ship there which is larger than all the regular Star Destroyers but much smaller than the Executor.

That's probably the battlecruiser Pride of Tarlandia - Legends identified it as the Communications Ship, and one of two battlecruisers at Endor. The newcanon story The Levers of Power also mentions it.

Interdictors as portrayed in the Rebels TV series are slightly larger than Immobilizer-418s, but still smaller than Imperial Star Destroyers.

[Rogar Demonblud]

my apologies. I try make sure my spelling is correct. Occasionally something slips through though.

I just programmed the correct spelling into my spell check.:smallwink:

[TheThan]

That's probably the battlecruiser Pride of Tarlandia - Legends identified it as the Communications Ship, and one of two battlecruisers at Endor. The newcanon story The Levers of Power also mentions it.

Interdictors as portrayed in the Rebels TV series are slightly larger than Immobilizer-418s, but still smaller than Imperial Star Destroyers.

Actually Legends sources indicate it’s a Tector class Star Destroyer (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Tector-class_Star_Destroyer/Legends). Personally I always thought it was just a low angle shot of one of the Imperial star destroyers; or possibly the Executor.

[Peelee]

Actually Legends sources indicate it’s a Tector class Star Destroyer (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Tector-class_Star_Destroyer/Legends). Personally I always thought it was just a low angle shot of one of the Imperial star destroyers; or possibly the Executor.

Wait, why is this supposed to be significantly larger? The wiki lists it as the same size as the Impstar Deuces.


Technical specifications
Length
1,600 meters

Seems like your initial reaction was right, and it is just an angled shot to make it appear larger.

[Cikomyr]

Wait, why is this supposed to be significantly larger? The wiki lists it as the same size as the Impstar Deuces.



Seems like your initial reaction was right, and it is just an angled shot to make it appear larger.

:smallbiggrin:

I am so immature

[Peelee]

:snallbiggrin:

I am so immature

Imean, it's a mile long. I think we can safely rule out feelings of inadequacy.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Imean, it's a mile long. I think we can safely rule out feelings of inadequacy.

Or say that it's the result of feelings of inadequacy.

Like most Empires based on the Roman-militarist model throughout the ages, the Galactic Empire is really fond of phallic shapes. Very large ones in particular.

[Peelee]

Or say that it's the result of feelings of inadequacy.

Like most Empires based on the Roman-militarist model throughout the ages, the Galactic Empire is really fond of phallic shapes. Very large ones in particular.

*looks at Star Destroyer*

Not to sound crude or anything, but..... what the hell kind of phalluses are you familiar with?

[hamishspence]

Actually Legends sources indicate it’s a Tector class Star Destroyer (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Tector-class_Star_Destroyer/Legends). Personally I always thought it was just a low angle shot of one of the Imperial star destroyers; or possibly the Executor.

Saxton created the Tector (for Incredible Cross Sections: ROTS - it mentions Tectors in the Venator-class description) not to explain the large non-Executor ship, but to explain the "hangarless Star Destroyer".


Hangarless Star Destroyer (http://www.theforce.net/swtc/dagger.html#destroyer5)

Communications Ship (http://www.theforce.net/swtc/dagger.html#commship)

The Levers of Power mentions Tectors - (the Tector-class ship Harbinger) as well as the battlecruiser Pride of Tarlandia - so both exist in the newcanon).


http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Pride_of_Tarlandia/Legends

[Giggling Ghast]

Admiral Ozzel's execution for his failures was semi-justified, IMO. I actually thought he was a Rebel sympathizer.

That said, killing Captain Needa was just a d**k move.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tSa3xLVYgM

[Olinser]

I'm surprised nobody has brought up Veers and his reaction to Vader when talking about this.

Veers delivers his report to Vader with calm, precise statements of things he knows are accurate and true (in the EU Veers is supposed to be sufficiently competent that he was personally recommended to Vader by Thrawn). Then Vader says Ozzel screwed it up.

If there had been a legitimate military reason for doing what Ozzel did, Veers would have known that, and been able to articulate that with the same precision that he delivered his initial report.

There obviously isn't, so Veers makes a clumsy, stuttering attempt to cover for Ozzel, clearly KNOWING that Ozzel had screwed the pooch. Vader doesn't even let him finish his sentence.

[Wardog]

I don't think anyone has mentioned it so far, but the dialogue indicates that not only has Ozzel screwed up, he has a record of failure.


Adm. Kendel Ozzel: Lord Vader, the fleet has moved out of lightspeed and we're preparing to
Darth Vader: [B]You have failed me for the last time, Admiral. Captain Piett.
Capt. Firmus Piett: [nervously] Yes, my Lord.
Darth Vader: Make ready to land our troops beyond their energy field, then deploy the fleet so that nothing gets off the system. You are in command now, Admiral Piett.
Piett: [sees a dead Ozzel collapse] Thank you, Lord Vader.
(My emphasis).

Presumably after making yet another botched attack, Vader concluded that he was of no use (and actually a hinderence), and so should be removed. In a more civilized society, he would be demoted, fired, retired, or moved into an administrative role. As it's the Empire (and more specifically, Vader), he's killed instead.

[Rogar Demonblud]

I take it you've never heard of Admiral Byng? Failure has consequences, whether or not incompetence is involved.

[The Glyphstone]

I don't think anyone has mentioned it so far, but the dialogue indicates that not only has Ozzel screwed up, he has a record of failure.


(My emphasis).

Presumably after making yet another botched attack, Vader concluded that he was of no use (and actually a hinderence), and so should be removed. In a more civilized society, he would be demoted, fired, retired, or moved into an administrative role. As it's the Empire (and more specifically, Vader), he's killed instead.

Not necessarily. We are discussing Darth Vader, it's entirely possible that failing him for the first time is also the last time. Especially when it's something Vader has such a large emotional investment in.

[Velaryon]

Worked as a projectionist at the time. I actually got paid to watch it, to ensure I built it right. Still wanted my money back.

I remember it's about a Jabba baby theft, but I've forgotten most of the details. Maybe I should look into the book. So long as I can shake off that Truman Capote voice, it might be bearable.

It's written by Karen Traviss, and has all the baggage that comes with that. I never saw the movie, but I'm reasonably certain that it doesn't contain a scene of Count Dooku sitting around ruminating on how much he misses Jango Fett cuz that guy was liek so awesum!!!!111! It isn't as bad as her other books, but she was unable to keep her pro-Mandalorian, anti-Jedi agenda out of the book. YMMV on whether that's a deal-breaker.



Despite the Abrams-Disney movie and many old (and probably new) EU sources making use of TIE Fighters and other TIE-series vehicles as atmospheric craft, I have serious doubts that any of the TIEs, or really any of the starfighters, seen in the original movies were ever intended to be used within an atmosphere. At a glance, TIE-series craft appear to have worse aerodynamic qualities than even Y-Wings, and X-Wings, one of the two most aerodynamic-looking starfighters seen in the original trilogy, are not used for atmospheric combat the one time in the original trilogy where it might have made sense for them to be used in such a role (Hoth, particularly if you believe the EU stuff about X-Wing laser cannons being sufficiently powerful to penetrate AT-AT armor despite Snowspeeder blasters being incapable of the same; you could also perhaps argue for Endor, but there's this minor issue of getting through the shield to perform an airstrike on the generator; the fact that an infiltration team was chosen to take down the shield instead of an airstrike or orbital bombardment, the fact that the infiltration team's shuttle requested deactivation of the shield prior to landing on the moon, and the fact that the Rebel fleet makes a very rapid turn when they decide that the shield remains active all suggest that an airstrike using starfighters was not a viable alternative) and the Rebellion made use of what appears to have been a somewhat-specialized atmospheric craft instead.

Presumably, the Empire would normally have made use of craft actually designed for atmospheric operations. Possibly the shield at Hoth prevented this, or perhaps the Star Destroyer squadron Vader had didn't have any despite having forces for ground assaults. Not really something that we can answer based on what was in the movies, though I will note that hovering vehicles had already been established in the previous movie and may have made more sense for the terrain but were not seen to be used during the assault.

If I remember correctly, one of the old X-Wing novels makes mention of this. Corran Horn (I think, could have been Wedge or Tycho) is being chased by TIEs at some point, either in his X-Wing or a Z-95 Headhunter (depending on which book I'm vaguely recalling), and he notes that while TIEs are more maneuverable in space, their design works against them in atmosphere. He makes a turn sharp enough that the wind shears the TIE's wing off when it tries to follow.



The thing about Hoth is that it's so cold a lot of the complex mechanics in a starfighter get shut down. Retrofitted snowspeeders were ok, but the x-wings couldn't do much more than land and take off in those conditions.

I think someone already said this, but wouldn't space be even colder?

[Mando Knight]

I think someone already said this, but wouldn't space be even colder?
Space is completely different from atmosphere in terms of thermal issues. Since radiation is essentially the only way you can shed heat in space (other than throwing hot stuff out of your ship), cooling your super-charged space fighter with oversized thrusters can be as much of an issue as keeping it warm.

The other factor is that Star Wars plays fast and loose with physics, and so The Galaxy appears to be filled with an aether that (as seen by Han and Leia walking about the "asteroid cave" with only gas masks on in ESB) is not much colder than the interior of the Hoth base, which seems to be kept warmer than the outside.

[Olinser]

It's written by Karen Traviss, and has all the baggage that comes with that. I never saw the movie, but I'm reasonably certain that it doesn't contain a scene of Count Dooku sitting around ruminating on how much he misses Jango Fett cuz that guy was liek so awesum!!!!111! It isn't as bad as her other books, but she was unable to keep her pro-Mandalorian, anti-Jedi agenda out of the book. YMMV on whether that's a deal-breaker.




If I remember correctly, one of the old X-Wing novels makes mention of this. Corran Horn (I think, could have been Wedge or Tycho) is being chased by TIEs at some point, either in his X-Wing or a Z-95 Headhunter (depending on which book I'm vaguely recalling), and he notes that while TIEs are more maneuverable in space, their design works against them in atmosphere. He makes a turn sharp enough that the wind shears the TIE's wing off when it tries to follow.




I think someone already said this, but wouldn't space be even colder?

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SpaceIsCold

One of the biggest problems with space travel is getting RID of heat.

[Drascin]

I think someone already said this, but wouldn't space be even colder?

Not really how it works. In fact, from what little I know, in space the problem is not heating up. It's managing to cool things down. Radiating heat is inefficient as hell, and you need some medium for cooling.

[VoxRationis]

I don't think anyone has mentioned it so far, but the dialogue indicates that not only has Ozzel screwed up, he has a record of failure.


(My emphasis).

Presumably after making yet another botched attack, Vader concluded that he was of no use (and actually a hinderence), and so should be removed. In a more civilized society, he would be demoted, fired, retired, or moved into an administrative role. As it's the Empire (and more specifically, Vader), he's killed instead.

Have you guys seen the Darths and Droids version of this scene? Vader at first forgets to promote Piett, and Piett makes the mistake of thanking Vader for not doing so, since admirals under Vader have such a short life expectancy. Vader then promotes Piett as a parting gesture.

@Rogar: Actually, yeah, I have heard of Admiral Byng. I find it an amusing parallel (I kind of wish Parliament had given the "you have failed us" line). However, it's unusual in the history of the British navy, and the move was sufficiently unusual that Voltaire mocked it specifically.

[druid91]

Space is completely different from atmosphere in terms of thermal issues. Since radiation is essentially the only way you can shed heat in space (other than throwing hot stuff out of your ship), cooling your super-charged space fighter with oversized thrusters can be as much of an issue as keeping it warm.

The other factor is that Star Wars plays fast and loose with physics, and so The Galaxy appears to be filled with an aether that (as seen by Han and Leia walking about the "asteroid cave" with only gas masks on in ESB) is not much colder than the interior of the Hoth base, which seems to be kept warmer than the outside.

Funnily enough. There are multiple references to 'etheric rudders' in the copy of the New Hope Novelization I've got as means of controlling starcraft in flight.

[Gnoman]

Funnily enough. There are multiple references to 'etheric rudders' in the copy of the New Hope Novelization I've got as means of controlling starcraft in flight.

There is, however, nothing that looks like a rudder on the actual ships. Most of the speculation I've seen is that the "etheric rudder" is a thrust-control system that uses the same controls that an atmospheric rudder would use to accomplish the same effect. An X-wing would be ideal for that given the spacing of the engines.

[Giggling Ghast]

Oh no, the thread is being lost to the mechanics of X-Wing Fighters. The death of so many Star Wars threads before it. :smalltongue:

[druid91]

Not necessarily. We are discussing Darth Vader, it's entirely possible that failing him for the first time is also the last time. Especially when it's something Vader has such a large emotional investment in.

This is Darth Vader we're talking about. He once executed an imperial officer (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Laurita_Tohm) for succeeding at his job as Vaders underling.

[Olinser]

This is Darth Vader we're talking about. He once executed an imperial officer (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Laurita_Tohm) for succeeding at his job as Vaders underling.

That's not what happened. He killed him because he thought he had gotten the Emperor's favor and was going to threaten his position.

[hamishspence]

Given that the officer is not Force-sensitive, there's no way he can threaten Vader's position as primary Force-using henchman. This shows Vader's extreme paranoia.

The Marvel comics showed what happened when Vader kept on executing Imperial officers on flimsy grounds, after Ozzel - they got together, concluded that they're not safe till Vader's dead - and tried to assassinate him.

[Aeson]

The Galaxy appears to be filled with an aether that (as seen by Han and Leia walking about the "asteroid cave" with only gas masks on in ESB)
You could alternatively assume that the ship is capable of generating a pressurized zone within a small region around the ship, and that the gas masks are a precaution against any toxins that might get into the air around the ship. We already know of the existence of a similar technology - there is no visible door or hatch by which the ship's atmosphere is contained within the docking bays of the two Death Stars and Home One - so it's not that much of a stretch to believe that it might be possible for ships to carry the equipment necessary to project a pressurized bubble around the ship.

I would further add that if there is any kind of reasonably-dense 'aether' suffusing the Star Wars galaxy, the design of the various TIE-series craft becomes very questionable and the design of many of the other starfighters isn't much better; if you have a reasonably-dense 'aether' in which the fighters must operate, you'll be better off designing fighters that don't have to fight their own aerodynamics in normal flight operations, let alone high-performance maneuvers.

[Keltest]

Given that the officer is not Force-sensitive, there's no way he can threaten Vader's position as primary Force-using henchman. This shows Vader's extreme paranoia.

The Marvel comics showed what happened when Vader kept on executing Imperial officers on flimsy grounds, after Ozzel - they got together, concluded that they're not safe till Vader's dead - and tried to assassinate him.

Vader is useful primarily because of his military experience and extreme loyalty to the Emperor. As a force user, he's negatively affected by having been incinerated and dismembered, and really, what has he done with the force that a normal person couldn't get done some other way in the movies? Besides fight Luke, which was, after all, a personal problem.

[hamishspence]

Vader is useful primarily because of his military experience and extreme loyalty to the Emperor. As a force user, he's negatively affected by having been incinerated and dismembered

The newcanon seems to be moving away from that - with Dark Lords of the Sith suggesting that Vader's experience on Mustafar actually strengthened his connection to the Dark Side of the Force.

The whole "Vader would have been 2x as powerful as Palpatine, but is now only able to be 80% as powerful as Palpatine" idea, while possibly Lucas-originated - never really made much sense.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Well, the idea is that his mistakes and defeat on Mustafar left him both physically and spiritually crippled (and remember, in Lucas's vision, both are components of strength in the Force - physical potential and spiritual training). But the idea has also been present for a long time that his sheer rage and frustration at his condition fuels his power in the Dark Side. His connection to the Force isn't as inherently strong as it was as Anakin Skywalker, but in terms of power he makes up for it by being permanently Hulk levels of pissed off.

[Peelee]

Well, the idea is that his mistakes and defeat on Mustafar left him both physically and spiritually crippled (and remember, in Lucas's vision, both are components of strength in the Force - physical potential and spiritual training).

Judge me by my size, do you?

Physical training may be useful in exhausting the body and teaching to live through the Force, but physical ability was not a component at all. At least until the "forget what was said earlier, everyone needs badass lightsaber fights" prequels.

[Rakaydos]

You could alternatively assume that the ship is capable of generating a pressurized zone within a small region around the ship, and that the gas masks are a precaution against any toxins that might get into the air around the ship. We already know of the existence of a similar technology - there is no visible door or hatch by which the ship's atmosphere is contained within the docking bays of the two Death Stars and Home One - so it's not that much of a stretch to believe that it might be possible for ships to carry the equipment necessary to project a pressurized bubble around the ship.

I would further add that if there is any kind of reasonably-dense 'aether' suffusing the Star Wars galaxy, the design of the various TIE-series craft becomes very questionable and the design of many of the other starfighters isn't much better; if you have a reasonably-dense 'aether' in which the fighters must operate, you'll be better off designing fighters that don't have to fight their own aerodynamics in normal flight operations, let alone high-performance maneuvers.

You're forgetting the mynocks- Winged, space based life. Also space worms, and in Rebels Space Whales as well. their physiology implies the existance of SOMETHING to push off of in space, either in aerial or aquatic form.

[factotum]

Judge me by my size, do you?

Physical training may be useful in exhausting the body and teaching to live through the Force, but physical ability was not a component at all. At least until the "forget what was said earlier, everyone needs badass lightsaber fights" prequels.

Worth noting that Yoda also had a badass lightsaber fight in the prequels, and it's pretty obvious from the moves he was pulling off during it that physical ability had pretty much zero to do with it--it's all the Force, man!

[Nerd-o-rama]

Judge me by my size, do you?

Physical training may be useful in exhausting the body and teaching to live through the Force, but physical ability was not a component at all. At least until the "forget what was said earlier, everyone needs badass lightsaber fights" prequels.

Physical potential mainly meaning Midichlorians. I don't care if nobody likes them because they were presented stupidly, they're canon, and it's a clear implication that regardless of their existence that getting 60+% of your physical body replaced by nonliving metal and plastic has a detrimental effect on your connection to the energy field that surrounds all living things.

[Peelee]

Physical potential mainly meaning Midichlorians. I don't care if nobody likes them because they were presented stupidly, they're canon, and it's a clear implication that regardless of their existence that getting 60+% of your physical body replaced by nonliving metal and plastic has a detrimental effect on your connection to the energy field that surrounds all living things.

Ahhhh, I getcha.

Midi-chlorian count was established to be effective by cell, though. Losing body parts shouldn't affect the connection to the Force that they provide, by the information given. Yoda, for instance, had an incredibly high count, yet if total midi-chlorians were what mattered instead of per-cell, even he would be rather fiddly compared to other humanoid Jedi with lower counts due to his small size. In essence, the more massive a species is, the more Force connection they would have. As this is clearly not the case, having prosthetics should not really hinder Force ability, correct?

[Nerd-o-rama]

It's not a matter of size (Yoda's consistently right on the money about that, if nothing else), but if a man's limbs and the microorganisms within them are a part of what connects him to the Force, losing them and having them replaced with non-living prosthetics is naturally going to have a deleterious effect on that connection, just because parts of him that used to be connected to the Force now are not. Maybe it's just a psychological thing (god knows a physical prodigy like Anakin Skywalker's going to go into a depression spiral over getting maimed regardless of what else happens), maybe it's a matter of actual physical connection, maybe it's just a matter of that breathing machine constantly distracting him, but regardless, it's pretty clearly established that Darth Vader, more machine than man, can't do as much with the Force as Anakin Skywalker, Jedi wunderkind could, in-movie and out.

The sheer rage he constantly feels because of that does make up for it in some instances of raw power, of course, since he can still overpower any surviving Jedi with varying degrees of ease, and is basically unstoppable by anyone else, old EU or new. I think the only people in either universe to give him an actual challenge, after he got accustomed to the armor, were his own ex-apprentices and Return of the Jedi Luke. And of course, the Emperor wins in the first round unless The Power of Filial Love and a self-sacrifice are involved.

[Keltest]

Its also worth pointing out that, prosthetics and life support suit or not, he is in fact a cripple. By the end of his fight with Luke in RotJ, he is audibly gasping and wheezing. His lungs were permanently damaged on Mustafar, and while specially filtered air can keep him alive, they still aren't really good for that level of activity.

[Peelee]

It's not a matter of size (Yoda's consistently right on the money about that, if nothing else), but if a man's limbs and the microorganisms within them are a part of what connects him to the Force, losing them and having them replaced with non-living prosthetics is naturally going to have a deleterious effect on that connection, just because parts of him that used to be connected to the Force now are not.

Except that they call out the number of midi-chlorians per cell as the metric for how strong one is in the Force. You are basically saying the connectivity not about size, but if you lose some size, then you lose some connectivity. It's at odds with each other.

Yoda has X number per cell. Yoda is very small. For sake of argument, let's say the Emperor also has X number per cell. If size doesn't matter, and only per-cell count matters, then the Emperor and Yoda would be evenly powerful (assuming evenly trained), and if the Emperor were cut down to Yoda's size, his connection to the Force would stay the same.

If size does matter, then if the Emperor were cut down, he would be far weaker and less attuned to the Force, but with his full body, he would be more powerful and more attuned than Yoda.

If losing bodily parts impedes ones' connection to the Force, then logically, more biomass = more ability to immerse in the Force, assuming enough midi-chlorians. Wookiees would be mighty powerful Jedi, and Hutts would be the greatest Dark Jedi around.

[Nerd-o-rama]

That's not what I'm saying, though. I'm saying that if you have a part of your body, living and connected to the Force, and then you lose it and replace it with something not connected to the Force, your connection to the Force is less than it was before. It's not about mass, it's about getting something that was a part of you replaced by something that, biologically speaking, is not. That connection to the Force just isn't there in non-living material, and it's going to change how well someone, especially someone as materially- and physically-focused as Anakin, relates to the Force.

[Keltest]

That's not what I'm saying, though. I'm saying that if you have a part of your body, living and connected to the Force, and then you lose it and replace it with something not connected to the Force, your connection to the Force is less than it was before. It's not about mass, it's about getting something that was a part of you replaced by something that, biologically speaking, is not. That connection to the Force just isn't there in non-living material, and it's going to change how well someone, especially someone as materially- and physically-focused as Anakin, relates to the Force.

So basically, its all in their head. Anakin got mutilated and turned into a monster, and it affected his power. Luke lost a hand and didn't lose all that much power because it didn't affect him the same way.

[The Glyphstone]

So basically, its all in their head. Anakin got mutilated and turned into a monster, and it affected his power. Luke lost a hand and didn't lose all that much power because it didn't affect him the same way.

It doesn't have to be in their head, it just has to exist on a more metaphysical level than microscopic parasites giving magic powers. Anakin lost 60% of his body (or whatever), reducing his connection to the force by 60% of pre-mutilation. Luke lost 5% (or whatever), reducing his aptitude by 5%.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Yeah, one prosthesis doesn't really affect people as badly as almost full-body-replacement. It could be a self-image thing, it could be a mystical thing. Really, the physical and spiritual aspects of the Force overlap quite a bit and I probably steered this conversation wrong by presenting them separately.

[Peelee]

If it makes you feel any better, I feel Lucas steered all conversations on it wrong by introducing midi-chlorians in the first place.

[Thrudd]

That's not what I'm saying, though. I'm saying that if you have a part of your body, living and connected to the Force, and then you lose it and replace it with something not connected to the Force, your connection to the Force is less than it was before. It's not about mass, it's about getting something that was a part of you replaced by something that, biologically speaking, is not. That connection to the Force just isn't there in non-living material, and it's going to change how well someone, especially someone as materially- and physically-focused as Anakin, relates to the Force.

Consider this, though: Both Jedi and Sith have figured out how to exist as force spirits after death. The entire body is gone, but they are stronger in the force than ever. Obi Wan says so in Episode IV. Anakin is able to do this after his death, as well, despite having lost 50% or more of his natural body. I am guessing that, whatever midichlorians are supposed to be, the body is not the only thing which dictates force ability. This implies the consciousness is the primary connection to the force, not this "crude matter". "Luminous Beings are we"!

The idea that cybernetics had a negative impact on the ability to use the force was presented in WEG Star Wars RPG, but I'm not sure where that idea came from. Maybe it was in an early EU story? I don't remember every detail of Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy well enough, but I can see it perhaps being brought up there.

[factotum]

Its also worth pointing out that, prosthetics and life support suit or not, he is in fact a cripple. By the end of his fight with Luke in RotJ, he is audibly gasping and wheezing. His lungs were permanently damaged on Mustafar, and while specially filtered air can keep him alive, they still aren't really good for that level of activity.

I may be misremembering, but he only starts gasping and wheezing after throwing Palpatine down the shaft, and I always thought that was due to the life support system in his suit being damaged by the Emperor's lightning rather than due to his exertions. I suppose you could argue that the fact he can't breathe without mechanical assistance is a pretty damaging physical problem, but it never seems to cause him an issue at any other time or any other place.

[The Glyphstone]

Consider this, though: Both Jedi and Sith have figured out how to exist as force spirits after death. The entire body is gone, but they are stronger in the force than ever. Obi Wan says so in Episode IV. Anakin is able to do this after his death, as well, despite having lost 50% or more of his natural body. I am guessing that, whatever midichlorians are supposed to be, the body is not the only thing which dictates force ability. This implies the consciousness is the primary connection to the force, not this "crude matter". "Luminous Beings are we"!

The idea that cybernetics had a negative impact on the ability to use the force was presented in WEG Star Wars RPG, but I'm not sure where that idea came from. Maybe it was in an early EU story? I don't remember every detail of Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy well enough, but I can see it perhaps being brought up there.

I wonder if it was some sort of cross-contamination from the early editions of Shadowrun - or vice versa, for that matter. WEG 1e was published in 1987, 2nd edition in 1992 - Shadowrun 1e came out in 1989, partway between the two.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Consider this, though: Both Jedi and Sith have figured out how to exist as force spirits after death. The entire body is gone, but they are stronger in the force than ever. Obi Wan says so in Episode IV. Anakin is able to do this after his death, as well, despite having lost 50% or more of his natural body. I am guessing that, whatever midichlorians are supposed to be, the body is not the only thing which dictates force ability. This implies the consciousness is the primary connection to the force, not this "crude matter". "Luminous Beings are we"!

Name a Force Spirit who performs any kind of action on or change to the physical universe beyond talking to people, outside of a video game (where they make handy boss fights).

"More powerful than you can possibly imagine" is, like everything Obi-wan says, only true from a certain point of view. They're connected to the Force, absolutely, but they've lost all means to use it except to learn and convey information (which they do very well, given that it seems Force Spirits are basically omnipresent for as long as they can hold on to their sense of self.)

[Sapphire Guard]

It seems as though Vader and Ozzel had different approaches. Vader's plan involved some kind of stealthy approach, Ozzel went for 'surprise' and overwhelming force, but wasn't counting on the planetary shield.

[Olinser]

It seems as though Vader and Ozzel had different approaches. Vader's plan involved some kind of stealthy approach, Ozzel went for 'surprise' and overwhelming force, but wasn't counting on the planetary shield.

He wasn't going to gain anything by his 'surprise' though. Which was the point made earlier. Surprise only gives you an advantage if you DO something with it. Ozzel came into the system too close for stealth but too far away to accomplish anything meaningful with his 'surprise'. The assault by the Imperials accomplished nothing but destroying the base, whereas if Ozzel had been either more aggressive or more stealthy, they could have potentially ended the Rebellion completely.

[Thrudd]

Name a Force Spirit who performs any kind of action on or change to the physical universe beyond talking to people, outside of a video game (where they make handy boss fights).

"More powerful than you can possibly imagine" is, like everything Obi-wan says, only true from a certain point of view. They're connected to the Force, absolutely, but they've lost all means to use it except to learn and convey information (which they do very well, given that it seems Force Spirits are basically omnipresent for as long as they can hold on to their sense of self.)

That may be true. So, would that imply only the ability to manipulate the physical world is connected to the physical body? So Vader's telekinesis and force-speed-jump type abilities should be poor, but his force sense and prescience just as good. I understand this might be an explanation for why we never see Vader do stuff like we see Anakin and Obiwan do in the prequels. However, we see him throw a ton of stuff around in Empire Strikes back, and he regularly force-chokes people. It is claimed that he hunted down and killed the last of the Jedi. His force powers were still strong enough to do that. Maybe it was more the power of a ton of storm troopers.

Still, the films make no reference to Vader's power being diminished due to his cybernetics. His powers, Obi-Wan's, Yoda's, and the Emperor's power all seem diminished in equal degree since the prequel trilogy. Nobody's jumping around like they used to. If we're going to propose an in-universe reason for that, maybe it is just aging that causes the diminishing of physical powers. Luke's force powers are decidedly stronger in RotJ, after losing the hand, than they were in ESB. We'll see if the new movies make any reference to his cybernetic hand giving him a handicap when it comes to the Force, but I sort of doubt it will.

[Olinser]

That may be true. So, would that imply only the ability to manipulate the physical world is connected to the physical body? So Vader's telekinesis and force-speed-jump type abilities should be poor, but his force sense and prescience just as good. I understand this might be an explanation for why we never see Vader do stuff like we see Anakin and Obiwan do in the prequels. However, we see him throw a ton of stuff around in Empire Strikes back, and he regularly force-chokes people. It is claimed that he hunted down and killed the last of the Jedi. His force powers were still strong enough to do that. Maybe it was more the power of a ton of storm troopers.

Still, the films make no reference to Vader's power being diminished due to his cybernetics. His powers, Obi-Wan's, Yoda's, and the Emperor's power all seem diminished in equal degree since the prequel trilogy. Nobody's jumping around like they used to. If we're going to propose an in-universe reason for that, maybe it is just aging that causes the diminishing of physical powers. Luke's force powers are decidedly stronger in RotJ, after losing the hand, than they were in ESB. We'll see if the new movies make any reference to his cybernetic hand giving him a handicap when it comes to the Force, but I sort of doubt it will.

My understanding is that his force powers were diminished not by cybernetics, but by the fact that he is in constant, agonizing pain every minute of every day, reducing his ability to focus his powers to the degree he could before.

[Thrudd]

My understanding is that his force powers were diminished not by cybernetics, but by the fact that he is in constant, agonizing pain every minute of every day, reducing his ability to focus his powers to the degree he could before.

Could be. But is there any film evidence for that? What diminished Obi Wan and Yoda and Palpatine's powers?

[Olinser]

Could be. But is there any film evidence for that? What diminished Obi Wan and Yoda and Palpatine's powers?

What evidence do you have that their Force powers were diminished at all?

Obi-Wan certainly was a much less impressive fighter, but he also went from an athletic middle aged man to an old, marginally overweight hermit. We only actually saw him use 2 Force powers at all (3 if you count his dragon scream as a Force power) - mind tricking the stormtrooper in Mos Eisley and then again to trick the troopers on the Death Star, both of which he did without real effort. Then in the saber fight both Obi-Wan and Vader were very obviously NOT really full on fighting, they were just kind of sparring and lecturing each other until Obi-Wan very obviously let Vader kill him. Just compare the Vader saber fight in the first movie to Vader in Empire Strikes Back, where he is significantly faster and more aggressive (and he STILL wasn't using his full skills and powers, he was fighting Luke literally one handed for the first half). So while Obi-Wan's fight with Vader wasn't impressive, there is no indication he actually was using his full powers at any point.

Yoda never actually demonstrated ANY Force powers other than lifting the X-Wing, which he did quite easily. So I see no indication his powers were diminished at all, and even if they were, it could be easily justified by him being at the end of a VERY long life.

Palpatine likewise didn't actually demonstrate any Force powers in the movies except lightning, which instantly disabled Luke. So again, I see no indication that his Force powers were at all diminished, he just didn't bother using any other than lightning. And why would he need to? He put Luke down laughably easily, and he was so surprised that Vader would actually turn on him that he wasn't able to react before he was over the railing. So again, no indication at all that Palpatine's powers were at all diminished.

[Thrudd]

What evidence do you have that their Force powers were diminished at all?

Obi-Wan certainly was a much less impressive fighter, but he also went from an athletic middle aged man to an old, marginally overweight hermit. We only actually saw him use 2 Force powers at all (3 if you count his dragon scream as a Force power) - mind tricking the stormtrooper in Mos Eisley and then again to trick the troopers on the Death Star, both of which he did without real effort. Then in the saber fight both Obi-Wan and Vader were very obviously NOT really full on fighting, they were just kind of sparring and lecturing each other until Obi-Wan very obviously let Vader kill him. Just compare the Vader saber fight in the first movie to Vader in Empire Strikes Back, where he is significantly faster and more aggressive (and he STILL wasn't using his full skills and powers, he was fighting Luke literally one handed for the first half). So while Obi-Wan's fight with Vader wasn't impressive, there is no indication he actually was using his full powers at any point.

Yoda never actually demonstrated ANY Force powers other than lifting the X-Wing, which he did quite easily. So I see no indication his powers were diminished at all, and even if they were, it could be easily justified by him being at the end of a VERY long life.

Palpatine likewise didn't actually demonstrate any Force powers in the movies except lightning, which instantly disabled Luke. So again, I see no indication that his Force powers were at all diminished, he just didn't bother using any other than lightning. And why would he need to? He put Luke down laughably easily, and he was so surprised that Vader would actually turn on him that he wasn't able to react before he was over the railing. So again, no indication at all that Palpatine's powers were at all diminished.

That could be, as well. No diminished power, they simply weren't shown. In which case, there is still no reason to think that Vader's power is diminished either by cybernetics or pain.

[themaque]

GAH! It's almost as if there was no consistency at all, and the whole universe is just running on the whims of some mad man deciding what's "Cool" in the moment.

[Cikomyr]

That could be, as well. No diminished power, they simply weren't shown. In which case, there is still no reason to think that Vader's power is diminished either by cybernetics or pain.

Meh. I suppose some still have a lingering mindset of Magic v Technology. Kinda like Shadowrun, where the more cyber upgrades you have, the least powerful your magic becomes.

[Cikomyr]

Name a Force Spirit who performs any kind of action on or change to the physical universe beyond talking to people, outside of a video game (where they make handy boss fights).

"More powerful than you can possibly imagine" is, like everything Obi-wan says, only true from a certain point of view. They're connected to the Force, absolutely, but they've lost all means to use it except to learn and convey information (which they do very well, given that it seems Force Spirits are basically omnipresent for as long as they can hold on to their sense of self.)

Becoming a Force Spirit did allowed for Obiwan to become a perma-mentor for Luke, and help him blow up the Death Star.

Whereas if Obiwan had been made prisonner...

[Peelee]

GAH! It's almost as if there was no consistency at all, and the whole universe is just running on the whims of some mad man deciding what's "Cool" in the moment.

Oh my, no. Not at all. It wasn't some mad man deciding on what's "cool" in the moment. It was a guy who created a sci-fi/fantasy combination universe in which space wizards dueled each other with laser swords while spaceships fought each other with laser guns.

Who then said, "but how can we make kids like it?"

[Aeson]

You're forgetting the mynocks- Winged, space based life. Also space worms, and in Rebels Space Whales as well. their physiology implies the existance of SOMETHING to push off of in space, either in aerial or aquatic form.
Enough science fiction settings, even some that make a pretense of remaining sort of scientifically accurate, have space fauna whose apparent means of locomotion don't match their environment that I really don't care that mynocks have wings or that mynocks and space slugs exist. Also, space being filled with a sufficiently dense fluid to make flapping mynock wings a reasonable means of locomotion is not very compatible with most of the starship hull forms shown in Star Wars being practical, especially not for high-performance craft such as the various starfighters.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Becoming a Force Spirit did allowed for Obiwan to become a perma-mentor for Luke, and help him blow up the Death Star.

Whereas if Obiwan had been made prisonner...

Hence what I mean about "a certain point of view". There's a lot to be said for omnipresence and not being shackled to a physical form located at a fixed point in space. It's just not the same kind of power as manipulating the weak-minded or hurling heavy objects around with your mind or choking people to death over a Skype connection.

[Peelee]

Seeing as how, especially in time of war, instantaneous communication is invaluable, and we have confirmation that the HoloNet is restricted by at the very least asteroid fields, and encryption is a never-ending war in itself to keep the comm lines safe from being intercepted and interpreted, it seems as if the Rebellion is using Kenobi very inefficiently as an alternate method of instantaneous, secure communication method.

[Hopeless]

I'm more inclined to believe there's a restriction involved we never figured out.

1) Why is Anakin's lightsaber so important?

2) When has Luke been able to talk to Obi-Wan after he died?

3) When was the last time Luke was able to converse with Obi-Wan, Yoda and Anakin following the death of the Emperor?

What I'd like to see is an Australian Jedi get involved, killed and revealed to have undergone the same training Qui-Gon did so we have an occasional Force Ghost to make sense of what's actually going on well that and the necessary need for a sarcastic force ghost!

Sorry but I think whatever process they go through I think they need a link to the physical plane to remain in contact so what did Obi-Wan give Luke other than inheriting his nemesis?

Oh yes that lightsaber, what happened to Rey when she picked it up?

She received a message that included comments from Obi-Wan making me think that's how he establishes a link to people he talks to now he's a force ghost.

How did that lightsaber reach Maz, more important why did it reappear inside Obi-Wan Kenobi's old trunk?

Given he isn't alive anymore it stands to reason he'd make sure one of his more important relics doesn't end up crushed in the depths of Bespin even if I actually hoped the Star Wars Uprising mobile game would have revealed how it reached Maz instead!

Anyway back to Admiral Ozzel, anyone think we haven't answered that question yet?

[Aeson]

1) Why is Anakin's lightsaber so important?
I would be inclined to say it isn't, except perhaps sentimentally for Luke as it's his father's weapon and Obi-Wan gave it to him.


2) When has Luke been able to talk to Obi-Wan after he died?
He heard Obi-Wan's voice during the escape from the first Death Star and on the first Death Star run in A New Hope; both on the Death Star and on the Death Star run it appears as though Anakin's lightsaber is not physically with Luke. He saw and spoke with Obi-Wan while nearly unconscious in the snow on Hoth, and again saw Obi-Wan on Dagobah when packing up the X-Wing to head off to Bespin in The Empire Strikes Back; in both of these instances Anakin's lightsaber was in physical proximity to Luke. He saw and spoke with Obi-Wan again on Dagobah and at least saw Obi-Wan on the Santuary Moon in Return of the Jedi; in both of these instances, Anakin's lightsaber is somewhere on Bespin to the best of our knowledge. If there's another time in the original trilogy that Luke saw or heard Obi-Wan, I don't remember it.


Sorry but I think whatever process they go through I think they need a link to the physical plane to remain in contact so what did Obi-Wan give Luke other than inheriting his nemesis?
I really don't think that there's any real evidence of a need for a physical link in the original trilogy. Two of the four times that Luke actually saw Obi-Wan's spirit were after Luke had lost the lightsaber and the two times in A New Hope that Luke hears Obi-Wan's voice after Obi-Wan died it appears as though Luke is not carrying the lightsaber. Obi-Wan is a mentor figure to Luke and is, judging by Luke's reaction to Obi-Wan's death, of some emotional importance to Luke, and moreover Luke and Obi-Wan probably knew one another while Luke was growing up on Tatooine, despite Owen's lack of regard for Obi-Wan. I don't feel you need any more than that to justify there being enough of a connection between the two of them for Obi-Wan to appear to Luke afterwards.

There is also no evidence that Yoda gave Luke any similar object, and yet Yoda is able to appear to Luke once within the original trilogy after Yoda's death despite there being no clear or significant connection between Yoda and Anakin's lightsaber, and the old EU occasionally had Yoda communicating with Luke at times after the Battle of Endor.


why did it reappear inside Obi-Wan Kenobi's old trunk?
Because J.J. Abrams and Disney felt that a weapon that really has no business being anywhere but the depths of Bespin should make an appearance in the film, because, hey, they have the prop and it's a connection to the older movies. There's no indication in the movies that Luke placed enough value on that lightsaber that he'd to go to the trouble of recovering it from Bespin, and there's no clear reason for anyone else to have done so either, unless you go with the Thrawn Trilogy's story about the Emperor wanting Luke's severed hand in case the Emperor ever decided to clone Luke, which never really made any sense in the first place because surely there's an easier way to obtain DNA samples, even covertly, than searching the depths of a gas giant, or unless we want to believe that Darth Vader's really sentimental about that lightsaber.

That whole sequence would have made at least as much sense and wouldn't require anyone to waste significant amounts of time and effort recovering an object of no more than sentimental value from a gas giant had it been Luke's lightsaber in that trunk rather than Anakin's; Rey is heavily implied to be either Luke's daughter or niece anyways, and the weapon of her father or uncle, even if initially unrecognized, having some resonance with her would be more understandable than a weapon which by rights should be sitting in the depths of a gas giant since long before she was born and belonging (originally) to someone who appeared rather unimportant to her.

[Peelee]

Because J.J. Abrams and Disney felt that a weapon that really has no business being
anywhere but the depths of BespinCloud City....

recovering it from BespinCloud City....

searching the depths of a gas giantcity in the clouds....

recovering an object of no more than sentimental value from a gas giantcity in the clouds....

sitting in the depths of a gas giantcity in the clouds....

Much better.

[Aeson]

Something of approximately the correct color and apparent size to be Luke's hand and lightsaber can be seen falling away from Cloud City at the time that Luke gets dumped onto an antenna beneath the city, apparently from out of the same shaft that Luke was dumped out of. Luke's hand and lightsaber fell from approximately the same location in the central cavity that Luke did; it is not entirely unreasonable to assume that Luke, his severed hand, and his lightsaber all passed through that shaft and were dumped into Bespin's atmosphere.

I would also point out that given that Luke ended up being dumped out of a shaft apparently intended to dump waste or debris into Bespin's atmosphere from that central cavity on Cloud City, it is entirely likely that Luke's hand and lightsaber ended up being dumped out of a similar shaft, even if they did not end up being dumped out of the same shaft that dumped Luke onto that antenna below Cloud City.

[Peelee]

Something of approximately the correct color and apparent size to be Luke's hand and lightsaber can be seen falling away from Cloud City at the time that Luke gets dumped onto an antenna beneath the city, apparently from out of the same shaft that Luke was dumped out of. Luke's hand and lightsaber fell from approximately the same location in the central cavity that Luke did; it is not entirely unreasonable to assume that Luke, his severed hand, and his lightsaber all passed through that shaft and were dumped into Bespin's atmosphere.

I would also point out that given that Luke ended up being dumped out of a shaft apparently intended to dump waste or debris into Bespin's atmosphere from that central cavity on Cloud City, it is entirely likely that Luke's hand and lightsaber ended up being dumped out of a similar shaft, even if they did not end up being dumped out of the same shaft that dumped Luke onto that antenna below Cloud City.

Assuming either actually made it into a shaft. Honestly, that whole thing was kind of odd and nonsensical. Why dump waste or debris over an antenna? It was an enclosed, pressurized space; how would debris get into it at all? What if something stopped in between the dumping chutes? Also, Luke's hand and lightsaber were lopped off at a vastly different trajectory, not to mention direction, than Luke fell in. Even if they somehow landed in a dumping chute, they would have fallen well before Luke did, and would have been out of sight by the time Luke fell.

There's just as much reason to assume that they are still at the bottom of Cloud City than to assume they fell into the depths of Bespin.

[Thrudd]

I'm more inclined to believe there's a restriction involved we never figured out.

1) Why is Anakin's lightsaber so important?

2) When has Luke been able to talk to Obi-Wan after he died?

3) When was the last time Luke was able to converse with Obi-Wan, Yoda and Anakin following the death of the Emperor?

What I'd like to see is an Australian Jedi get involved, killed and revealed to have undergone the same training Qui-Gon did so we have an occasional Force Ghost to make sense of what's actually going on well that and the necessary need for a sarcastic force ghost!

Sorry but I think whatever process they go through I think they need a link to the physical plane to remain in contact so what did Obi-Wan give Luke other than inheriting his nemesis?

Oh yes that lightsaber, what happened to Rey when she picked it up?

She received a message that included comments from Obi-Wan making me think that's how he establishes a link to people he talks to now he's a force ghost.

How did that lightsaber reach Maz, more important why did it reappear inside Obi-Wan Kenobi's old trunk?

Given he isn't alive anymore it stands to reason he'd make sure one of his more important relics doesn't end up crushed in the depths of Bespin even if I actually hoped the Star Wars Uprising mobile game would have revealed how it reached Maz instead!

Anyway back to Admiral Ozzel, anyone think we haven't answered that question yet?

We'll learn that 30 years ago, Maz worked in sanitation at Cloud City, and the ghost of Obi Wan made sure the lightsaber conveniently got sucked into a chute where it got jammed and caused the sewage to back up.

[Aeson]

What if something stopped in between the dumping chutes?
It appears during the falling sequence as though the chute into which Luke 'falls' is on the walls of the cavity rather than at the base. I would suggest that, that being the case, there is not much danger that anything would stop between the dumping chutes, at least not these chutes, as there is something actively drawing things into the chutes rather than there being any significant reliance on gravity to draw things in, and the lack of turbulence on Luke's approach to the chute and how nicely aligned he is with the chute as he enters it suggests that it is not air pressure or air currents which drew him in; at the very least, the other chutes which are seemingly nearby do not appear to be competing to draw him in, which limits the potential for things to get pinned to the wall/floor halfway between two chutes.


Even if they somehow landed in a dumping chute, they would have fallen well before Luke did, and would have been out of sight by the time Luke fell.
Depends on what triggers the chute to dump. Time? Load? The existence of any debris, no matter how small or large?


Also, Luke's hand and lightsaber were lopped off at a vastly different trajectory, not to mention direction, than Luke fell in.
Luke's hand and lightsaber are essentially stopped at the time that Vader severs Luke's hand. The hand, lightsaber, and Luke all begin their falls with very low initial velocities and enter whatever air currents exist within the cavity from points which are very close together. There is no reason to expect that Luke's hand and lightsaber followed a 'vastly' different trajectory.

Moreover, there is something affecting Luke's trajectory which appears to be sufficiently strong to pull him from a more or less vertical fall in the center of the cavity into a more or less horizontal trajectory entering a chute on the cavity's wall. A force sufficiently powerful to do this is likely more than strong enough to do the same to a lightsaber and a severed hand.

[Olinser]

It appears during the falling sequence as though the chute into which Luke 'falls' is on the walls of the cavity rather than at the base. I would suggest that, that being the case, there is not much danger that anything would stop between the dumping chutes, at least not these chutes, as there is something actively drawing things into the chutes rather than there being any significant reliance on gravity to draw things in, and the lack of turbulence on Luke's approach to the chute and how nicely aligned he is with the chute as he enters it suggests that it is not air pressure or air currents which drew him in; at the very least, the other chutes which are seemingly nearby do not appear to be competing to draw him in, which limits the potential for things to get pinned to the wall/floor halfway between two chutes.


Depends on what triggers the chute to dump. Time? Load? The existence of any debris, no matter how small or large?


Luke's hand and lightsaber are essentially stopped at the time that Vader severs Luke's hand. The hand, lightsaber, and Luke all begin their falls with very low initial velocities and enter whatever air currents exist within the cavity from points which are very close together. There is no reason to expect that Luke's hand and lightsaber followed a 'vastly' different trajectory.

Moreover, there is something affecting Luke's trajectory which appears to be sufficiently strong to pull him from a more or less vertical fall in the center of the cavity into a more or less horizontal trajectory entering a chute on the cavity's wall. A force sufficiently powerful to do this is likely more than strong enough to do the same to a lightsaber and a severed hand.

The hand and Luke's body have VASTLY different surface area and weight. By Vader's cape and Luke's clothes billowing around you can easily see there is rather significant air current in that area, and the area where Luke lands has multiple individual chutes in close proximity. This would cause a fall of that length to have dramatic variance in landing chute between the two objects.

Then when he stops for a minute in the chute before getting dumped, you can see the whole area around him and the hand is definitely NOT there.

Frankly I would be pretty surprised if both of them had ended up in the same chute. The object that fell into the gas giant looked a lot more like his blaster to me.

[Rodin]

I always assumed Luke's horizontal move as he fell was simply him using the Force to drop into the garbage chute rather than splattering at the bottom of the shaft.

[Cikomyr]

I always assumed Luke's horizontal move as he fell was simply him using the Force to drop into the garbage chute rather than splattering at the bottom of the shaft.

I personally assumed it was the air tube sucking him in. Ya know, a powerful ventilation shaft.

[Aeson]

The hand and Luke's body have VASTLY different surface area and weight.
A heavier object experiences a lower acceleration for a given applied force than a lighter object, and an object with more surface area projected in the direction of travel will in general experience greater drag forces than an object with less surface area projected in the direction of travel. In short, Luke's greater weight acts against his greater surface area when considering how these affect his fall's trajectory by comparison to the trajectory or trajectories followed by his severed hand and lightsaber, though the effects will not necessarily cancel out.

I would also add that a hand and a body have similar overall shapes and surface properties, which suggests similar drag force per unit projected area. The hand likely experiences somewhat higher drag force per unit volume but, particularly if still grasping the lightsaber, most likely has a higher average density, producing similar overall accelerations.


Then when he stops for a minute in the chute before getting dumped, you can see the whole area around him and the hand is definitely NOT there.

True. There is however one more chamber that we know of between where Luke is shown stopping in the chute and where the exterior hatch that he falls out of is, and we do not see enough of it while the external hatch is opening to say that the hand and lightsaber are not there; the hatch does not open sufficiently to guarantee that a hand or lightsaber resting in the lower chamber would have fallen out before the movie cuts to Luke dropping into the final chute, and by the time we cut back to a view in which we can see the hatch, we can see that it has opened wider and most likely passed the point at which a hand or lightsaber resting on the hatch would have dropped out.


The object that fell into the gas giant looked a lot more like his blaster to me.
When we see Luke climb up the antenna, after we see the object falling away from Cloud City, we can see what appears to be a black handle sticking out of the holster. Earlier in the movie, we get to look at Luke's holster relatively close up, and it does not appear to have any parts which might be mistaken for a black handle (it's a brown leather, roughly trapezoidal holster and does not appear to have any segments which would extend along the grip of the blaster) and we also see that there is a strap which can be used to secure the blaster in the holster, which is not seen flapping around during any point in the fight with Vader, suggesting that when Luke holstered the blaster he also secured the strap. I would therefore suggest that the object falling away from Luke after he dropped out of the chute under Cloud City is not his blaster. What it is, I am not sure, but the only things we know of that are all that likely to be falling out of Cloud City in this region are his severed hand, his lightsaber, things Luke has or may have on him, and a few metal objects that are roughly cylindrical or rectangular that Vader threw out a window or chopped off the catwalk during the fighting, and the falling object does not appear to have the right shape, color, or size to be one of the metal objects, Luke's blaster appears to still be in its holster, and the other objects on Luke's belt likewise appear to have remained attached to Luke's belt. Unless there was more trash in the system than the rather clean and empty chute Luke was in and the lack of other visible debris falling away would suggest, that leaves Luke's hand and lightsaber as the only objects we know of which fit.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Are you guys really arguing about how Maz Kanata wound up with Luke's lightsaber and not, say, any of the other impossible coincidences that come up at least once a movie?

Why did the Imperials not shoot down the droids' escape pod?
How did Luke manage to make an uncontrolled blind landing on a planet and still end up within half a mile of the guy he was looking for's house?
Why didn't everyone just bust into Jabba's palace at the same time while the gang was sleeping?
How did anything in Episode I even happen?
Why doesn't anyone question anything in Episode II?
How in the hell did "he killed all the younglings" make it into the script of a PG-13 rated action adventure melodrama?

At least the OP question here raised interesting tactical and psychological analysis.

[HandofShadows]

Why did the Imperials not shoot down the droids' escape pod?

An Imperial officer (probably a soon to be dead Imperial officer) noted the pod didn't have life signs and it's launching was likely an accident. In other words he didn't think it was worth the effort to shoot it.


How did Luke manage to make an uncontrolled blind landing on a planet and still end up within half a mile of the guy he was looking for's house?

The FORCE!


Why didn't everyone just bust into Jabba's palace at the same time while the gang was sleeping?

Because the guards on the outside and the droids would not be sleeping. Any attack would have been meet with heavy resistance.


How in the hell did "he killed all the younglings" make it into the script of a PG-13 rated action adventure melodrama?

We didn't actually SEE any of them being killed.

[factotum]

An Imperial officer (probably a soon to be dead Imperial officer) noted the pod didn't have life signs and it's launching was likely an accident. In other words he didn't think it was worth the effort to shoot it.

Which might be a good thing if they had some sort of critical energy or ammunition shortage and couldn't afford to shoot at just anything, but I doubt that's the case. I wonder why George Lucas included the scene at all, to be honest...it didn't really add anything to the story, and if anyone had asked why the Imperials didn't shoot down the pod, he could have said that the Star Destroyer's guns weren't really designed to hit a fast-moving small target like that and they didn't have time to launch TIEs to deal with it.

[GloatingSwine]

An Imperial officer (probably a soon to be dead Imperial officer) noted the pod didn't have life signs and it's launching was likely an accident. In other words he didn't think it was worth the effort to shoot it.


Or, with no lifesigns in the pod they assumed that whatever had been stashed in it would still be there when they found it (which they did within a few hours) so they didn't need to intercept it.

[Nerd-o-rama]

The FORCE!

If "The Force did it" can explain that, it can explain the Skywalker Lightsaber being wherever it needed to be.


We didn't actually SEE any of them being killed.

I meant the goofiness of the line and the inherent hilarity of the word "Younglings" not fitting the script, not a censorship issue. Although all the offscreen child murder was pretty jarring.

[Thrudd]

The FORCE!


"That's not how the Force works!" - my favorite line from that movie

lol Seriously though, I'm sure that's it. Both Obi Wan and Yoda would have been helping to make sure he got there, in addition to his own force sense.

[Wardog]

Enough science fiction settings, even some that make a pretense of remaining sort of scientifically accurate, have space fauna whose apparent means of locomotion don't match their environment that I really don't care that mynocks have wings or that mynocks and space slugs exist. Also, space being filled with a sufficiently dense fluid to make flapping mynock wings a reasonable means of locomotion is not very compatible with most of the starship hull forms shown in Star Wars being practical, especially not for high-performance craft such as the various starfighters.

That asteroid has enough gravity for Han and Leia to walk around with no problem, so it presumably also has enough gravity to retain a thin atmosphere. (And/or, maybe the atmosphere inside the space slug is generated as part of its metabolism).

[Bobb]

Or, with no lifesigns in the pod they assumed that whatever had been stashed in it would still be there when they found it (which they did within a few hours) so they didn't need to intercept it.

This universe has droids though.

[The Glyphstone]

This universe has droids though.

The Empire doesn't, or at least not outside little tiny things like those mouse droids. Sure, they exist in-universe, but with the institutional/cultural prejudice against droids, it's a far more understandable blind spot in the guy's thinking than people make it out to be.

[Kantaki]

This universe has droids though.

That shouldn't be able/aren’t allowed to use escape pods. R2... is kinda a exemption due to the quirks he developed after decades of not getting his memory wiped and 3PO basically had to be forced to enter the pod.
Usually not shooting the pod would have been a reasonable decision. It's not the gunners fault that two of the droids on the Tantive IV had a severe case of protagonistism.

[Keltest]

That shouldn't be able/aren’t allowed to use escape pods. R2... is kinda a exemption due to the quirks he developed after decades of not getting his memory wiped and 3PO basically had to be forced to enter the pod.
Usually not shooting the pod would have been a reasonable decision. It's not the gunners fault that two of the droids on the Tantive IV had a severe case of protagonistism.

Its also worth noting that, had R2 not tricked Luke into taking off his restraining bolt, the empire would have tracked the droids down at the Lars' farm and captured them.

[Sapphire Guard]

Given that Force Powers include sensing other Jedi, precognition, and Force ghosts, it is more likely than not IMO that Yoda made sure he was near where Luke landed/was going to land

[Mando Knight]

The Empire doesn't, or at least not outside little tiny things like those mouse droids.

The Empire uses protocol and astromech droids all the time. There were some visible on the Death Star, even.

[The Glyphstone]

The Empire uses protocol and astromech droids all the time. There were some visible on the Death Star, even.

Correction noted. Still, none of them would have been capable of entering or using an escape pod, by their restraining bolts if nothing else.

[Olinser]

If "The Force did it" can explain that, it can explain the Skywalker Lightsaber being wherever it needed to be.



I meant the goofiness of the line and the inherent hilarity of the word "Younglings" not fitting the script, not a censorship issue. Although all the offscreen child murder was pretty jarring.

Not 'the Force did it' for crashing on Dagobah.

YODA did it. With the Force. He grabbed Luke's fighter and made sure he landed alive and near him.

[Keltest]

Not 'the Force did it' for crashing on Dagobah.

YODA did it. With the Force. He grabbed Luke's fighter and made sure he landed alive and near him.

Personally I find Yoda using the force to know where Luke will land, intentionally or otherwise, to be far more likely than Yoda deliberately ripping Luke out of orbit and throwing him into the bog.

[Olinser]

Personally I find Yoda using the force to know where Luke will land, intentionally or otherwise, to be far more likely than Yoda deliberately ripping Luke out of orbit and throwing him into the bog.

He didn't rip him out of orbit. Watch the movie. Luke didn't lose control until he was well into the atmosphere.

[Keltest]

He didn't rip him out of orbit. Watch the movie. Luke didn't lose control until he was well into the atmosphere.

Even so. Redirection on that level and with that much brute force doesn't match Yoda's style.

[Cikomyr]

Even so. Redirection on that level and with that much brute force doesn't match Yoda's style.

Aplanet is freakin' big. Why not both? Anticipating the overall landing location, and using the Force to get him within 1km of his hut

[Cazero]

Or using the Force to guess where he should build his hut. He had two decades for that, he might have built a dozen of huts all around his swamp planet just in case he got it wrong.

[Rodin]

Or using the Force to guess where he should build his hut. He had two decades for that, he might have built a dozen of huts all around his swamp planet just in case he got it wrong.

I'm now imagining Yoda spending the 20-ish years between Epsiode III and IV just wandering around Dagobah building huts. The entire planet, just...huts. All so that he can "coincidentally" meet Luke and have a nice place to sleep a few minutes away.

[Peelee]

Which might be a good thing if they had some sort of critical energy or ammunition shortage and couldn't afford to shoot at just anything, but I doubt that's the case. I wonder why George Lucas included the scene at all, to be honest...it didn't really add anything to the story, and if anyone had asked why the Imperials didn't shoot down the pod, he could have said that the Star Destroyer's guns weren't really designed to hit a fast-moving small target like that and they didn't have time to launch TIEs to deal with it.
Well, without that scene, one could ask why Leia herself didn't take an escape pod down to Tattooine, since they can clearly launch even though they're supposed to be 'captured' by the Empire. Also, Vader's plan was to make it look like the Yavin IV had a cataclysmic disaster; an empty malfunctioning escape pod would only serve to further the idea that it was accidentally lost with all hands.

Now just ignore that there's no way the gunnery team had any way of knowing Vader's plan, and it's pretty solid again.

I'm now imagining Yoda spending the 20-ish years between Epsiode III and IV just wandering around Dagobah building huts. The entire planet, just...huts. All so that he can "coincidentally" meet Luke and have a nice place to sleep a few minutes away.
This is the greatest thing ever.

[Storm_Of_Snow]

Well, without that scene, one could ask why Leia herself didn't take an escape pod down to Tattooine, since they can clearly launch even though they're supposed to be 'captured' by the Empire. Also, Vader's plan was to make it look like the Yavin IV had a cataclysmic disaster; an empty malfunctioning escape pod would only serve to further the idea that it was accidentally lost with all hands.

I guess the droids were assigned to the Tantive IV by Bail Organa, and maybe he told Leia that if she ever got into trouble, R2 would be able to help. So she gave the plans to him, then stayed back to try and protect them.

Or maybe the Force guided her into using R2.

As for Vader's plan for the ship, I think it was something he came up with on the spur of the moment, so that he could take Leia to the Death Star for interrogation without the senate raising hell or word leaking out and making her into a cause celebre.

[Peelee]

I guess the droids were assigned to the Tantive IV by Bail Organa, and maybe he told Leia that if she ever got into trouble, R2 would be able to help. So she gave the plans to him, then stayed back to try and protect them.

Or maybe the Force guided her into using R2.

As for Vader's plan for the ship, I think it was something he came up with on the spur of the moment, so that he could take Leia to the Death Star for interrogation without the senate raising hell or word leaking out and making her into a cause celebre.

Let me rephrase.

Without the scene of the commander explicitly telling the gunner to hold his fire, we would be sitting here arguing about why the Star Destroyer didn't fire at all. It has lasers, there's clearly an escape pod trying to get away, no reason to not shoot at all. With the scene, we know they didn't shoot because there's no life signs. Without the scene, they just apparently don't shoot escape pods at all. Leia could have gone in herself, for all we know, because she wouldn't have been shot.

The scene itself serves a purpose, is what I'm saying here. Coulda done better on it, though.

[VoxRationis]

The Empire doesn't, or at least not outside little tiny things like those mouse droids. Sure, they exist in-universe, but with the institutional/cultural prejudice against droids, it's a far more understandable blind spot in the guy's thinking than people make it out to be.


That shouldn't be able/aren’t allowed to use escape pods. R2... is kinda a exemption due to the quirks he developed after decades of not getting his memory wiped and 3PO basically had to be forced to enter the pod.
Usually not shooting the pod would have been a reasonable decision. It's not the gunners fault that two of the droids on the Tantive IV had a severe case of protagonistism.

Droids aren't permitted to use escape pods; as per the words of C-3PO, "it's restricted." That permission can surely be granted by a desperate Rebel commander eager to get crucial information or materiel to safety. A droid doesn't need to be unusually independent to take an order like that. Given how Luke interacts with droids in the beginning of A New Hope, most of them respond to verbal commands, so if someone a droid recognizes as an appropriate authority says "Take this, get into the escape pod, and take it to X person or place," the droid will at least try to comply.

[The Glyphstone]

Droids aren't permitted to use escape pods; as per the words of C-3PO, "it's restricted." That permission can surely be granted by a desperate Rebel commander eager to get crucial information or materiel to safety. A droid doesn't need to be unusually independent to take an order like that. Given how Luke interacts with droids in the beginning of A New Hope, most of them respond to verbal commands, so if someone a droid recognizes as an appropriate authority says "Take this, get into the escape pod, and take it to X person or place," the droid will at least try to comply.

That's the thinking of someone who doesn't spend all their time around droids locked into severe restraints/restriction programs, on top of a strong institutional prejudice against droids in general - no Imperial commander would trust an independent droid with something crucial, or expect it to perform competently outside its specific specialty. Hence why I specifically called it a 'blind spot' due to the culture and training of the officer, it simply didn't occur to him that someone would do that.

[Olinser]

I guess the droids were assigned to the Tantive IV by Bail Organa, and maybe he told Leia that if she ever got into trouble, R2 would be able to help. So she gave the plans to him, then stayed back to try and protect them.

Or maybe the Force guided her into using R2.

As for Vader's plan for the ship, I think it was something he came up with on the spur of the moment, so that he could take Leia to the Death Star for interrogation without the senate raising hell or word leaking out and making her into a cause celebre.

The droids were given to Captain Antilles (the guy Vader choked), Threepio even says that in the movie (Our last master was Captain Antilles).

[Velaryon]

Space is completely different from atmosphere in terms of thermal issues. Since radiation is essentially the only way you can shed heat in space (other than throwing hot stuff out of your ship), cooling your super-charged space fighter with oversized thrusters can be as much of an issue as keeping it warm.

The other factor is that Star Wars plays fast and loose with physics, and so The Galaxy appears to be filled with an aether that (as seen by Han and Leia walking about the "asteroid cave" with only gas masks on in ESB) is not much colder than the interior of the Hoth base, which seems to be kept warmer than the outside.

I'll take your (and Olinser's and Drascin's) word for that, since the science of it flies right over my head.

With regard to the asteroid cave, they were literally walking around in the gullet of a living organism. Presumably it's an endothermic one since it's clearly not going to warm its body while tucked inside an asteroid like that, so I'm not surprised that its internal temperature allows for them to walk around outside in relative comfort. There being enough atmosphere inside so that they can walk around without full pressurized suits is something different, but could still I guess be put down to the fact that they're walking around inside another living thing.

But yeah, nothing about that scene screams "scientifically accurate" by any means.

[Mando Knight]

I'll take your (and Olinser's and Drascin's) word for that, since the science of it flies right over my head.

The basic gist of it is that it's like the difference between trying to warm yourself up by standing three feet away from a lightbulb or by grasping it firmly in hand.

Convective/conductive heat is much faster than radiative heat, but requires the hot stuff to touch cold stuff to make the cold stuff somewhat warmer. The hot stuff also radiates heat (as EM waves, it's why infrared cameras can be used to spot people in the dark), but that's much slower way of losing heat than putting it next to cold stuff. In space, where the average density is measured in atoms per cubic centimeter, there isn't enough cold stuff bumping into your hot stuff to cool you off.

[VoxRationis]

That's the thinking of someone who doesn't spend all their time around droids locked into severe restraints/restriction programs, on top of a strong institutional prejudice against droids in general - no Imperial commander would trust an independent droid with something crucial, or expect it to perform competently outside its specific specialty. Hence why I specifically called it a 'blind spot' due to the culture and training of the officer, it simply didn't occur to him that someone would do that.

No Imperial would, but I refuse to believe this is the first time a Rebel or even just a regular smuggler, of the sort Imperials hunt down regularly, has put crucial or incriminating materiel inside a droid. In a universe like Star Wars, that's got to be pretty close to the oldest trick in the book. It doesn't matter if one oneself wouldn't use that trick; if one's enemies use it commonly, one catches on.

[Keltest]

No Imperial would, but I refuse to believe this is the first time a Rebel or even just a regular smuggler, of the sort Imperials hunt down regularly, has put crucial or incriminating materiel inside a droid. In a universe like Star Wars, that's got to be pretty close to the oldest trick in the book. It doesn't matter if one oneself wouldn't use that trick; if one's enemies use it commonly, one catches on.

Most droids are not as innovative as R2. Such a tactic would quite likely not work especially well, especially given that it took a large number of coincidences to make it viable in the first place.

[Olinser]

Most droids are not as innovative as R2. Such a tactic would quite likely not work especially well, especially given that it took a large number of coincidences to make it viable in the first place.

Yep. If they'd given the plans to Threepio the movie would have been over in 2 minutes.

[VoxRationis]

Most droids are not as innovative as R2. Such a tactic would quite likely not work especially well, especially given that it took a large number of coincidences to make it viable in the first place.

It took a large number of coincidences to make it work as spectacularly well as it did (finding both one of the last Jedi and a nascent Force prodigy, all in sufficient time that they could rescue Princess Leia from her execution). However, it would not take so many coincidences to make it be viable in the sense of successfully getting the Death Star plans to the Rebellion. A lesser R2 droid could be told to go to ground somewhere in the middle of nowhere (easy enough on Tatooine), go dark for a period of time, and then wake up and pulse its active sensors in a fashion recognizable to a local Rebel agent, who goes to pick it up.

[Rakaydos]

It took a large number of coincidences to make it work as spectacularly well as it did (finding both one of the last Jedi and a nascent Force prodigy, all in sufficient time that they could rescue Princess Leia from her execution). However, it would not take so many coincidences to make it be viable in the sense of successfully getting the Death Star plans to the Rebellion. A lesser R2 droid could be told to go to ground somewhere in the middle of nowhere (easy enough on Tatooine), go dark for a period of time, and then wake up and pulse its active sensors in a fashion recognizable to a local Rebel agent, who goes to pick it up.

A lesser R2 droid would never have been freed from it's restraining bolt, wherever it was sold by the jawas.

Imagine how BB8 would have turned out if Rey hadnt shown up to save it?

[Peelee]

It took a large number of coincidences to make it work as spectacularly well as it did (finding both one of the last Jedi and a nascent Force prodigy, all in sufficient time that they could rescue Princess Leia from her execution). However, it would not take so many coincidences to make it be viable in the sense of successfully getting the Death Star plans to the Rebellion. A lesser R2 droid could be told to go to ground somewhere in the middle of nowhere (easy enough on Tatooine), go dark for a period of time, and then wake up and pulse its active sensors in a fashion recognizable to a local Rebel agent, who goes to pick it up.

In this scenario, the Imperial stormtroopers would simply not follow the tracks because..... reasons?

[factotum]

It took a large number of coincidences to make it work as spectacularly well as it did (finding both one of the last Jedi and a nascent Force prodigy, all in sufficient time that they could rescue Princess Leia from her execution).

It's not *that* coincidental--Leia was on her way to see Obi-wan Kenobi when Vader caught up with her and attacked her ship, so the droids landing in roughly the right place to find him isn't too far beyond the bounds of reason. Since he was there watching Luke, him coming along for the ride also isn't really a coincidence.

[VoxRationis]

A lesser R2 droid would never have been freed from it's restraining bolt, wherever it was sold by the jawas.

Imagine how BB8 would have turned out if Rey hadnt shown up to save it?

It's frankly a remarkable coincidence that a droid in the middle of nowhere runs into Jawas in the first place. Even given that the Jawas would be looking for droids, there's a fairly low population (both total and of Jawas in particular) in a very large expanse of desert. They could have looked for the pod, but at least in the movie they didn't, because they would either have a) got to the pod before the stormtroopers, and they would have taken the whole pod rather than leave it for them, or b) arrived at the pod after the stormtroopers arrived and been either killed or forced to relinquish the droids, thus being unable to sell them to Luke.
But since we're not talking about the movie's canon, but rather hypotheticals regarding what could happen, or what is more likely to happen, we must rather consider the low chance of a sandcrawler being within easy traveling distance of the landing point of an escape pod before Imperials arrived on the scene and/or any occupants left in a random and unpredictable direction.

Regarding the stormtroopers following tracks, do you think the gunnery officer has sufficient confidence in the tracking skills of stormtroopers that it's not worth giving a "fire" order? Even a good tracker could run into unexpected snags (such as a freak sandstorm covering tracks, or the target intentionally or unintentionally heading across less-revealing terrain), and even a successful tracking mission would take longer to execute than simply destroying the pod. If the pod is allowed to make landfall with the droids inside, even a mediocre droid would have a significantly higher chance of escaping than is truly necessary for the Empire to accept. Any Rebel or smuggler trying to get something to safety would take some chance of success over none, and any Imperial would want to deny them that chance.

[factotum]

They could have looked for the pod, but at least in the movie they didn't, because they would either have a) got to the pod before the stormtroopers, and they would have taken the whole pod rather than leave it for them, or b) arrived at the pod after the stormtroopers arrived and been either killed or forced to relinquish the droids, thus being unable to sell them to Luke.


Of course, you have to wonder how the same set of Jawas who captured C3PO also managed to get R2D2, given the two droids travelled in opposite directions when they left the escape pod and presumably droids don't suffer the human issue of walking in circles without realising it! Unless they followed the tracks back from where they got C3PO, but then, as you say, they'd have run into the Imperials.

[Yora]

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That's why.

[Sapphire Guard]

Possible explanation 1: The gunner was never told that the goal of the mission was death star plans, he thought it was to capture Leia, so he didn't realise an empty escape pod was important.

Possible explanation 2: They want to confirm that they've retrieved the plans, and if they destroy the pod they won't know for certain.

[Keltest]

Possible explanation 1: The gunner was never told that the goal of the mission was death star plans, he thought it was to capture Leia, so he didn't realise an empty escape pod was important.

Possible explanation 2: They want to confirm that they've retrieved the plans, and if they destroy the pod they won't know for certain.

I think the second one is more plausible.

[snowblizz]

Well it happened. I'm curious enough to get in the waters with the piranhas. Now I'm not a midiclorean (sp?) counter, I'm more of a "Samurai in SPACE! Wooo!" kind of audience.

First. No one seems particularly surprised at random escape pod launch. Apparently their high-tech gear does this often enough it's not a OMG! failure.
Second. I for one would not go opening fire without authorisation first.
Third. Because apparently this is something so routine it's handled by middle management at the gun decks. They did check for anyone onboard.
Fourth. Did we all just forget that the OP is asking about super villian guy force choking ppl for perceived failures as he sees it? Are you going to be the one reporting one of your underlings fired the ships weaponry without express orders? Are you going to be the one pressing the fire button? What military academy gave you a pasisng grade? That's a pretty big deal on any warship. Even without said Lord Bighelmet routinely killing ppl who bother him with news he hates. I think best outcome for this is 50/50 force choking when trying to explain why you fired the ships weapons. Not doing something is mostly better than doing the wrong thing.
Fifth. This isn't Space Balls the Movie, you can't get plot critical information by watching the movie. Isn't at least half of you using meta knowledge to evaluate what happened?
Sixth. Did I mention the crazy guy force choking ppl for various reasons?

In short, mid level flunkies decided something happening often enough (technical failure) that it's not a problem for the big wigs after checking if the most likely option happened (someone did in fact escape) and decided not to bother said randomly psychotic big wigs with this apparently routine equipment malfunction.
Shocking.

[Hopeless]

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That's why.

Oh that is brilliant!!!:smallbiggrin:

[Sapphire Guard]

It wouldn't be at all unexpected for an enemy ship under fire to discharge an escape pod. I think the implication is, the gunner assumed someone trying to escape launched the pod by accident before they could get into it.

[Gnoman]

Either that or he assumed it was an automated launch based on the damage the ship had taken. It's far from implausible that a ship would be rigged to dump the escape pods in the event of something like an atmosphere leak or radiation exposure (either of which could mean imminent structual failure) and for a ship that was being pounded the way the Tantive IV was to have such an event detected.

[Keltest]

It wouldn't be at all unexpected for an enemy ship under fire to discharge an escape pod. I think the implication is, the gunner assumed someone trying to escape launched the pod by accident before they could get into it.

The ability to accidentally launch an escape pod from the immediate outside seems like a significant design flaw. The only situation I can think of where you would ever want to do it is if there was a pod full of unconscious people, and you couldn't fit without straining life support. And even in that case, they could just program in a delayed launch function for it.

[VoxRationis]

Well it happened. I'm curious enough to get in the waters with the piranhas. Now I'm not a midiclorean (sp?) counter, I'm more of a "Samurai in SPACE! Wooo!" kind of audience.

First. No one seems particularly surprised at random escape pod launch. Apparently their high-tech gear does this often enough it's not a OMG! failure.
Second. I for one would not go opening fire without authorisation first.
Third. Because apparently this is something so routine it's handled by middle management at the gun decks. They did check for anyone onboard.
Fourth. Did we all just forget that the OP is asking about super villian guy force choking ppl for perceived failures as he sees it? Are you going to be the one reporting one of your underlings fired the ships weaponry without express orders? Are you going to be the one pressing the fire button? What military academy gave you a pasisng grade? That's a pretty big deal on any warship. Even without said Lord Bighelmet routinely killing ppl who bother him with news he hates. I think best outcome for this is 50/50 force choking when trying to explain why you fired the ships weapons. Not doing something is mostly better than doing the wrong thing.
Fifth. This isn't Space Balls the Movie, you can't get plot critical information by watching the movie. Isn't at least half of you using meta knowledge to evaluate what happened?
Sixth. Did I mention the crazy guy force choking ppl for various reasons?

In short, mid level flunkies decided something happening often enough (technical failure) that it's not a problem for the big wigs after checking if the most likely option happened (someone did in fact escape) and decided not to bother said randomly psychotic big wigs with this apparently routine equipment malfunction.
Shocking.

The guns all over the Devastator had been firing for some time. This was not a circumstance of whether to consider a ship a valid target. Tantive IV (and therefore its crew and daughter vessels) had clearly been designated as a valid target. The two ships are in space and firing energy weapons—no one's going to get mad about an extra shot here or there after shots have already been fired many times. However, Darth Vader would get mad if/when he learns that a gunnery officer could have prevented the plans from escaping Tantive IV without effort, but didn't.

[Hopeless]

The guns all over the Devastator had been firing for some time. This was not a circumstance of whether to consider a ship a valid target. Tantive IV (and therefore its crew and daughter vessels) had clearly been designated as a valid target. The two ships are in space and firing energy weapons—no one's going to get mad about an extra shot here or there after shots have already been fired many times. However, Darth Vader would get mad if/when he learns that a gunnery officer could have prevented the plans from escaping Tantive IV without effort, but didn't.

However they wouldn't have proof about what happened to the plans and its possible the officer told them to leave it in case it was intentionally launched and firing on it would allow the next pod to successfully evade their fire if they had done so.

They did make a point of alerting their superiors to that empty escape pod so they covered themselves well its not as if the pod was carrying some bomb able to blow up a planet after all... that was an entirely different movie...:smallamused:

[Keltest]

The guns all over the Devastator had been firing for some time. This was not a circumstance of whether to consider a ship a valid target. Tantive IV (and therefore its crew and daughter vessels) had clearly been designated as a valid target. The two ships are in space and firing energy weapons—no one's going to get mad about an extra shot here or there after shots have already been fired many times. However, Darth Vader would get mad if/when he learns that a gunnery officer could have prevented the plans from escaping Tantive IV without effort, but didn't.

The use of turbolasers aside, Vader's intention is clearly to capture the ship and crew, not annihilate them. Erring on the side of "we didn't want to destroy the proof" seems to be the more prudent choice here.

[Nerd-o-rama]

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http://images-cdn.moviepilot.com/image/upload/c_scale,h_259,w_610/t_mp_quality/09-what-if-indiana-jones-and-darth-vader-teamed-up-to-kill-hitler-png-230098.jpg

http://images-cdn.moviepilot.com/image/upload/c_scale,h_273,w_598/t_mp_quality/011-what-if-indiana-jones-and-darth-vader-teamed-up-to-kill-hitler-png-230100.jpg

http://images-cdn.moviepilot.com/image/upload/c_scale,h_342,w_610/t_mp_quality/012-what-if-indiana-jones-and-darth-vader-teamed-up-to-kill-hitler-png-230101.jpg

http://images-cdn.moviepilot.com/image/upload/c_scale,h_342,w_610/t_mp_quality/013-what-if-indiana-jones-and-darth-vader-teamed-up-to-kill-hitler-png-230102.jpg

http://images-cdn.moviepilot.com/image/upload/c_scale,h_362,w_610/t_mp_quality/014-what-if-indiana-jones-and-darth-vader-teamed-up-to-kill-hitler-png-230104.jpg

http://images-cdn.moviepilot.com/image/upload/c_scale,h_305,w_610/t_mp_quality/015-what-if-indiana-jones-and-darth-vader-teamed-up-to-kill-hitler-png-230105.jpg

http://images-cdn.moviepilot.com/image/upload/c_scale,h_343,w_610/t_mp_quality/016-what-if-indiana-jones-and-darth-vader-teamed-up-to-kill-hitler-png-230106.jpg
That's why.

Oh my god.