Stars Wars Megageek Discussion - The Death Star

[Seret Sajet]

I can't help it, when an inconsistancy in Star Wars stories comes along I can't just instantly rule out on idea, I feel the need to discuss it. So come on Star Wars Geeks, lets talk.

The inconsistancy starts in Dark Force Rising, the second book of the Thrawn trilogy by Timothy Zhan. Most people put a lot of stock in his books and treat them as cannon in the Star Wars universe so I'm curious to see how people take it. In the book Mara Jade and Luke Skywalker have a talk about the destruction of the first Death Star. She tells Luke how angry it made the Emperor at Vader for the failure and thats how he lost his hand.

Now put aside the fact that Episode II came along later and stripped this fact of truth. What bugs me instead is how Zhan explains how angry the Emperor was and particually at Vader.

Now go to another book. The Mandalorian Armor, the first book of the Bounty Hunter Wars trilogy by K.W. Jeter. In this book, a part taking place after a New Hope but before Empire, the Emperor speaks with Prince Xizor with Vader on a hololink. During their talk Vader throws an "I Told You So" at the Emperor for the failure of the first Death Star. The Emperor doesn't defute it, he agrees and explains how the Death Star was his Generals idea. It was their endevor, he just approved it.

Now this part is for all you who follow the movie only. I can respect that, nothing wrong with only holding the movies as cannon. In the movies we are a bit conflicted. In A New Hope Vader expresses distrust in the Death Star, stating how its just a machine and nothing compared to the force. In this movie its the Imperial Moff and Generals that hold all the power over the station. Its Grand Moff Tarkin who commands it. Chances are if Vader doesn't much care about the Death Star then the Emperor is not far behind him in agreement.

But in Jedi we're twisted once again. Now it seems like the 2nd Death Star is the Emperor's pet project. Vader sends the message in the beginning that he wants everything up and running when the Emperor arrives. This is a big deal because the freakin' Emperor is actually going to sit his ass down on the Deathstar. His overconfidence was his downfall.

So here's the discussion. Was the Emperor all about the Dark Side and politican effectiveness or was he all military might. Personally I like Zhan's books alot but that little part of his book holds no water for me. I prefer Jeter's explination of it. I'd like the think the Emperor wouldn't put the fate of his victory in the hands of a machine.

I know this might even be TOO geeky for some but I'd like to hear what everyone thinks. Is the Empire a shrewd tactician or "blow em all to hell" kind of militiary force?

[Shadowpaw]

I think he is a better tactician than a "blow 'em all to hell" kinda guy.

The way I see it, is that even before the Emperor arrived on the 2nd Death Star, he had forseen some of what would happen (i.e. Crix Madine defecting, and informing the Rebels about the shield generator on the forest moon of Endor).

Since he saw that, he then set plans into action to stop the rebels from destroying the shield generator, as was almost accomplished in Return of the Jedi. Because he had faith that his stormies and AT-STs would stop the rebels, he, as a result, had overconfidence in the 2nd Death Star.

So essentially, the Emperor's overconfidence in the 2nd Death Star came, in a sense, from an overconfidence in his own knowledge of the Force...

That's just how I see it though...

[Dwilah]

People change.

I think he manuevered his way to power as we see in Ep. I and II...the generals and the military did the whole, let's make a superweapon thing, and somebody who has had ALL their plans come true so far...I mean, why WOULDN'T you want to go ahead with making a superweapon to give you ultimate control and power? He was already sitting on top of the Galaxy pretty much. I'm sure he was feeling pretty full of himself.

After the first Death Star was blown to bitty pieces, I imagine it was a personal pride sort of thing. We have to rebuild it to show up those little weasels, and THIS time it's going to be bigger, badder, and going to kick even more ass. And this time the Emporer himself is going to oversee it so some lame underling doesn't crap it up. Plus I mean, you know the great effect the Emporer has on troop morale.

As far as that part of Zahn's book, I've discussed it with other fans and I really don't get it, myself. If you wanna go back to the movies, in RotJ, you know, Obi Wan says that Vader is more machine now than man. Sets the precedent. In the book, which the earliest publish/copyright date I can find for it is 1992 anyway, it's saying that's how Vader lost his hand is the pissy Emporer way. I don't remember if the text specifies which hand he lost, or if he lost an already mechanical hand...I mean, from what I remember (and I got no copy of the book to verify anything) the text was so foggy I couldn't get anything out of it anyway.

IMO Zahn was kinda wigging out when he wrote that part. Haha. Plus I mean...even though it's considered kinda "canon" it's not really canon...for me the only thing truly canon is gunna be the movies. So even if Lucas throws everything EU out the window with stuff in Ep3...you keep what works, you throw what doesn't.

[Jerrel]

Well first off the Emporer is niether. He believes in rule by fear. I believe its even stated somewhere in one of the books, I think Shadow of the Empire (the book that connects events in ESB and ROTJ). The Emporer could care less if his generals created a thousand Death Stars or a thousand giant rubber duckies. As long as his citizens trembled in fear when it showed up he was happy. The Emporer believed that a population scared to death of what he would do with such a weapon would also be a population too scared to resist his rule. Now I do believe he would be pissed off after lossing so many credits on a weapon of that magnitude to just ONE proton trop.

As for the refrence Dark Force Rising Jade only says he lost a hand she didn't say it was a real one. If I had a prostetic hand and I miss placed it before goin to sleep and couldn't find it in the morning I still lost my hand. BUT, at Comi-Con in San Diego Zhan was asked what he felt like when Episode 2 came out and not only negated that small passage but threw out alot of what he wrote including the small fact that clones go insane after a few years. He simply said that he likes to think of it this way: We're all kids (referring to himself and other SW writers) playing with George's toys in his drive way and when he backs up the car and smashes all thoughs toys who are we to complain.

I think that the biggest thing we should always remember though is that nearly every piece of written material out there was written by a diffrent person and when you have that many people writting about the same small group of people you will always get inconsistancies. The important thing to do is to take what you like and ingnore the rest. I love all the books that take place after A New Hope and hate all materials on the prequells, so in my opinion the prequells didn't happen. Lucas sold out and the prequells are just another attempt to fatten his pocket book with the least ammount of effort possible.

[Keer]

Thanks Seret. I can always count on you to bring up the stuff that I *want* to talk about but not, ya' know, start the ball rolling on :lol:

Given: there are some great ideas in the EU that I think really fits into the "official" canon. But so much more that I *really* can't abide. So I tend to just rest on the movies. Even the Han Solo Adventures from 80-81, which I love most in all EU, I can't treat it as official because I like it.

Now, that said, I've always thought of Palpatine as an ultimate Machiavellian type. If it works do it. Very similar to Hitler when he was building up the Nazis. Prejudices were "practical" until he got Chancellor powers and started purging the ranks. Same thing with Palpatine. Jabba? Ignore him until we squash the Rebellion. Black Sun? Ditto. Use them to help crush the Alliance if need be. Death Star? Abso-freakin-lutely, if it helps keep order while the Rebels are dealt with.

Vader on the other hand, I could see scoffing at the Death Star, even if he knew it was the right idea. To me Vader fits the "I prefer a straight fight..." quote more than Han Solo. He's a face to face guy. If it were up to him he'd fight a hundred Hoth battles instead of sitting back letting the Death Star Super Laser crews have all the fun blowing up planets.

In my "If I Wrote Star Wars" mind, the Empire's internal tensions would closely resemble Hitler's with his generals. That is, only mutual suspiscion as long as things are going well but subversion and assassination attempts when things are going down hill. To me this is where Vader would come in by being present on the Death Star. To help recover the stolen plans? Sure. But also to make sure the Imperial Army and Navy didn't get any funny ideas about a coup d'etat using the Death Star, Tarkin included. I believe there are even some official sources noting that Tarkin's secret ambition was to use the Death Star to unseat the Emperor. Damn if I can find them though.

So in summary, I could see Palpatine :

- happily supporting the Death Star out of sheer pragmatism.

- being mad at Vader for not preventing it's loss (it was Vader's idea to let Leia escape and track the Falcon)

- being a combination of politician/Sith devotee'/military warlord as the circumstances dictated. A pure politician really. Chameleon.

Side note: There's SO much more story that I'd like to see regarding the dynamic between Vader, Palpatine, and the military. Though they were all on the same team Vader wanted to ditch Palpatine with Luke at his side. Palpatine didn't really trust Vader either or anyone for that matter. And the military and Grand Moffs probably chafed under both of them and their "sad devotion" to Sith sorcery.

One EU story that I really think hit this aspect on the head was a Dark Horse 4-part story from October 2002 called Betrayal. It's the first four issues under the Star Wars: Empire title. It basically entails a coup plot by the Grand Moffs to assassinate Vader and Palpatine. But there's so much undertone regarding the personal relationship between Vader and Palpatine. Great artwork too. After those first four issues that story concludes and the title basically turns to crap.

[E-bo Obi]

I'm necroing because I don't remember seeing this before and it stimulated my interest.

When I read Zahn's books and any references made by Mara Jade to the Death Star's, in the Thrawn Trilogy, I looked at it like this.

Mara was being influenced by the dark side of the force. Her judgement and visions were clouded. If you look at it, she was present at neither place so everything she saw was what the Emporer wanted her to see. Now I know it doesn't explain some of the inconsistencies in the stories she told but that is how I explained them away so that I didn't get hung up on them.

As far as what he did with the newer movies... I simply take them as a possible explanation of what happened up to that point. I really think some of the book series are a lot better done and more interesting than the movies. I look back and realize now that the only movie that has overall longstanding replay value for me is Empire.

The Emporer wanted toys. He loved toys. anything that was a visible show of the Empire's power made him get excited. He was a force user but the problem is that He couldn't show up in every system every year and put on a magic show. He used the might of the military to impress power amongst the masses because people believe in what they can see, not some mystical force that he commands.

[Jaminos]

Well first I have to say I really enjoyed the Mandolorian armor book, I based alot of my charecter's thoughts and action after those of the bounty hunters. But to get more to the discussion I think that the way they said it in the mando armor was a better way to say it.

The death star was a machine that showed authority. It was no more then a machine and the emporer used it much like vader to get his message along. Once that message was spread throughout the galexy he would have likely forgot about it and let it sit and slowly decay. The emporer would spend billions of credits on somthing as big as the death star just to show his power and money. I think that he did not think of it as an actual object that would make him any more powerful more of an example.

You do not need something like the death star to blow up a planet. You could use a fleet of star destroyers that have already been made blow up a planet with the same effectiveness just took longer. I think it is all about showing he can do these things by making somthing of great power and destruction and then let somebody destroy it and not think twice about it.

[Isleh]

I always looked at it as the Emperor never intended for the second death star to be finished. It's only purpose was to draw the rebellion out in full force and to bring Luke to him. It was his project, but the second death star was a disposable tool.

He saw the defeat of Luke in his visions but did not look past that and did not see Vader betraying him.

[X'an Shin]

There's just too many ways to go, seeing that even the film's canon contradicts itself.

I'm just going to chalk it all up to sloptastical writing.

[warsloth]

I hate Lucas...

There are a million things I could say about that statement but my number one thing... lets put it this way, while hitting him with an axe I would yell "It's called a DIRECTOR'S CUT, ever heard of one?!!!"
he got high and mighty and fired most of the smart people before making ROTJ and the Puke Prequels. Only things I would consider canon are the original release ANH, and ESB.

solution...

Edit: It all comes down to who has the biggest gun.