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SCRawl wrote:

PhilosopherOfSorts wrote:Did he? I don't think I've ever seen anything like that, but then, I am wrong sometimes.

From the quote in the OP:

Slave Ship, apparently wrote:The Emperor had already shown his disregard for maintaining the galaxy's customer base, by sanctioning the late Governor Tarkin's destruction of the planet Alderaan with the massive firepower of the original Death Star.

Oh shit, I missed that, my bad.

SCRawl wrote:

PhilosopherOfSorts wrote:Did he? I don't think I've ever seen anything like that, but then, I am wrong sometimes.

From the quote in the OP:

Slave Ship, apparently wrote:The Emperor had already shown his disregard for maintaining the galaxy's customer base, by sanctioning the late Governor Tarkin's destruction of the planet Alderaan with the massive firepower of the original Death Star.

To be fair, that's from the perspective of the KDY CEO. Yes, KDY had pretty lucrative contracts and IIRC their higher ups were pretty chummy with the Imperial nobility, but presumably he still wouldn't be privy to something as sensitive as plans to the destroy a major a planet. He might have been referring to the fact that the Death Star was built in the first place as implicit approval or even an explicit approval after the fact, though.

PhilosopherOfSorts wrote:The second Death Star, if you recall, was not complete at the time of its destruction, that's why the fighters could get inside in the first place. Had it been completed, it would not have had the same vulnerability as the first one. As for why the Empire built another Death Star, well, the problem that it was intended to solve still existed, that being planetary shields that could stand up to a conventional bombardment for weeks, if not months. Remember Obi-Wan's mention of sieges in the outer rim, from ROTS? Those were something Palpatine wanted to avoid having to do again.

I personally think Tarkin was lucky that the Death Star was destroyed and he was killed onboard. I just can't really see Palpatine being pleased that Tarkin just up and decided to vaporize a core world on his own authority, but he might, just might, accept it as necessary, if it meant no more opposition to his rule. After Alderaan, Tarkin had two options, end the Rebellion, or die horribly, over a long period, several times.

True about Tarkin

If you played Star Wars Empire at War Forces of Corruption, you may remember the last mission when you ally with rebels to destroy 6 imperial space stations, than you get the super SD and start destroying rebel ships with that beam of it. Then, Darth Vader's personal SD arrives and you can't use the beam anymore, you destroy that Super SD and continue destroying rebels. That SD which you use is what I'm talking about. It could destroy a planet and it could destroy large ships with that beam. And of course it was well defended. A whole bunch of guns and shield generators..and of course, a better hyperdrive than that of the death star 1. That ship could end Palpatine's problems and serve as a symbol of Imperial military power.

Darth Yoshi wrote:

SCRawl wrote:

PhilosopherOfSorts wrote:Did he? I don't think I've ever seen anything like that, but then, I am wrong sometimes.

From the quote in the OP:

Slave Ship, apparently wrote:The Emperor had already shown his disregard for maintaining the galaxy's customer base, by sanctioning the late Governor Tarkin's destruction of the planet Alderaan with the massive firepower of the original Death Star.

To be fair, that's from the perspective of the KDY CEO. Yes, KDY had pretty lucrative contracts and IIRC their higher ups were pretty chummy with the Imperial nobility, but presumably he still wouldn't be privy to something as sensitive as plans to the destroy a major a planet. He might have been referring to the fact that the Death Star was built in the first place as implicit approval or even an explicit approval after the fact, though.

According to good ole' Wookieepedia,

Emperor Palpatine was suspicious of Kuat's motives in refusing to bid on the Death Star project (the reason was that the Death Star could potentially replace a large number of capital warships, which would result in a severe decrease in profits for KDY)

They don't say what the source material is though, which sucks.

Angry about the DS because it could 'replace a large number of capital ships'? What a greedy (and stupid) bastard...

Kori wrote:True about Tarkin

If you played Star Wars Empire at War Forces of Corruption, you may remember the last mission when you ally with rebels to destroy 6 imperial space stations, than you get the super SD and start destroying rebel ships with that beam of it. Then, Darth Vader's personal SD arrives and you can't use the beam anymore, you destroy that Super SD and continue destroying rebels. That SD which you use is what I'm talking about. It could destroy a planet and it could destroy large ships with that beam. And of course it was well defended. A whole bunch of guns and shield generators..and of course, a better hyperdrive than that of the death star 1. That ship could end Palpatine's problems and serve as a symbol of Imperial military power.

That ship was the Eclipse, it is well covered in literature (not an invention of Forces of Corruption, which sucked) and it could not destroy planets. Oh, btw, the DS1 had way more guns and shield generators than the Eclipse.

Darth Yoshi wrote:To be fair, that's from the perspective of the KDY CEO. Yes, KDY had pretty lucrative contracts and IIRC their higher ups were pretty chummy with the Imperial nobility, but presumably he still wouldn't be privy to something as sensitive as plans to the destroy a major a planet. He might have been referring to the fact that the Death Star was built in the first place as implicit approval or even an explicit approval after the fact, though.

That's a good point. As with all things, consider the source, which in this case was apparently the omniscient narrator, but from the POV of someone who may not have been privy to all of the information.

On that matter, in the ANH radio dramatization, Vader tells Tarkin that Alderaan is such an important planet to the galaxy that the Emperor should be "consulted," but Tarkin swats the suggestion aside and says the Emperor has given him a "free hand."

So, the Emperor didn't really tell him to blow up Alderaan as a demonstration, he just told Tarkin to put down the rebellion, probably by whatever means neccesary.

Edit - and here's the quote

VADER: Alderaan is one of the foremost of the inner systems. The Emperor should be consulted.
TARKIN: Do not think to challenge me! You're not confronting Tagge or Motti now! The Emperor has placed me in charge of this affair with a free hand, and the decision is mine! And you will have your information that much sooner.

Captain Seafort wrote:

Havok wrote:Are you fucking serious?

Absolutely.

The Empire could make 10,000 executors and it shouldn't even put a dent in the GALACTIC economy. Let alone come close to bankrupting it.

So what? How about billion Executors? A trillion? A billion trillion? Sooner or later they will bankrupt themselves. If they try and make too many teaspoons they'll bankrupt themselves (although the numbers required to do so will, obviously, be slightly higher for teaspoons than for Executors).

Wow really? Did you go to detective school?

The quote you seemed to not have a problem with, was saying that ONE executor class ship almost bankrupted the Empire. Not one run of the ship.

Heh, Galactic economics.

Some economy students at Lehigh University made minor news for attempting to work out the cost (in today's terms) of building the Death Star (structure only, non-working).
Their blog.

To be honest, it was a pretty poor effort.
They started with a diameter of 140km, assumed it was made from mild, low carbon steel, and assumed it should have an equivalent amount of steel per volume as a modern warship because

After all, they're both essentially floating weapons platforms so that seems reasonable.

Good thing these guys are studying economics, not engineering...

They also asked "Would there be enough iron in the Earth to build one?" and were AMAZED to find that there's 200 billion times that much iron in the Earth, which is a bit bigger than 140km and also not mostly hollow as well as being mostly made of iron. Who knew, huh? Shit imagine for a second a spherical mass of iron... no, wait- don't.

So anyway, they came up with $8.52E+17 (13 times modern Earth's GDP) and this also BLEW THEIR FUCKING MINDS.

So...

Havok wrote:Do people not realize the scope of Star Wars at all?

Shit no. They really don't.

BTW, at their price, the DS superstructure would cost the same as feeding the population of Coruscant for a little over a week (if we assume a dollar a day to feed each of them).
It was small potatoes.

Just for extra fun, I did the numbers for poop disposal.Spoiler Let me know if I've fudged any numbers there, anyone.

Havok wrote:The quote you seemed to not have a problem with, was saying that ONE executor class ship almost bankrupted the Empire. Not one run of the ship.

Ah, I see your confusion - in my original statement I was referring to the ISD bit of the quote. I simply used Exs later on to further your comment about 10,000 of them. My original quoting could certainly have been clearer, and for that I apologise.

Havok wrote: The quote you seemed to not have a problem with, was saying that ONE executor class ship almost bankrupted the Empire. Not one run of the ship.

A 19 km starship has lots of volume for gold plated sci fi super toilets and bordellos for the Admirals. It's not like they're going to put significant weapons or defenses on the thing is it? (CF Endor)

Also remember the 'lack of railings' meme.

Connor MacLeod wrote:

Havok wrote: The quote you seemed to not have a problem with, was saying that ONE executor class ship almost bankrupted the Empire. Not one run of the ship.

A 19 km starship has lots of volume for gold plated sci fi super toilets and bordellos for the Admirals. It's not like they're going to put significant weapons or defenses on the thing is it? (CF Endor)

Also remember the 'lack of railings' meme.

Bizarrely enough, this is not to insane. In Destiny's Way, the Guardian is described as having an Admiral's lounge the size "of a full shockball court." Now I've no idea how big a shockball court is, but it's clearly supposed to be big compared to the usual cabins.

There's also Thrawn keeping an art collection on his flag ship.

Darth Tedious wrote:According to good ole' Wookieepedia,

Emperor Palpatine was suspicious of Kuat's motives in refusing to bid on the Death Star project (the reason was that the Death Star could potentially replace a large number of capital warships, which would result in a severe decrease in profits for KDY)

They don't say what the source material is though, which sucks.

Angry about the DS because it could 'replace a large number of capital ships'? What a greedy (and stupid) bastard...

Even knowing about the Death Star its capabilities doesn't mean that Kuat would be in a position to be know that Palpatine told Tarkin "go ahead and destroy Alderaan," though. According to the quote TC Pilot provided, Tarkin was apparently given carte blanche to destroy the Rebellion, but that's a far cry from Tarkin saying "I plan to destroy a specific Core world" and Palpatine responding "have fun with that."

The Romulan Republic wrote:There's also Thrawn keeping an art collection on his flag ship.

Isn't Thrawn's collection entirely holographic, though? I suppose there's space copyright and DRM to deal with, but if the guy's using the art for war I can't really see him giving a shit. That's not the same as gold-plated toilets or whatnot.

Not entirely. I recall at least one piece being confirmed as real. Not sure if any others were.

Of course, it has a military purpose, rather than being just a luxury.

The Romulan Republic wrote:There's also Thrawn keeping an art collection on his flag ship.

Now now, that is a magic art collection that allows him to have insight into space captains because, they are just like the artists of their homeworlds. EL OH FUCKING EL.

Man Hav, you keep harping on that false impression over and over again.

So. It's completely retarded however it was implemented.
I actually remember reading it for the 1st time back in high school and I had to re-read, I just thought it was so worthy.

I have never held Thrawn in the high regard that the rest of the fanboys have and he has always just been a villain of the week to me. The best of lot maybe, but no better.

Your opinion, of course, and you are entitled to it. But please don't characterize Thrawn as "looking at art = autowin".

The Romulan Republic wrote:Not entirely. I recall at least one piece being confirmed as real. Not sure if any others were.

Of course, it has a military purpose, rather than being just a luxury.

Pellaeon hinted at Thrawn having more artworks in his collection at the end of TUF when he was giving the Killik Twilight to Han and Leia (said the Twilight was one of the few remaining pieces).

I never really understood the logic behind people who must have Alderaan not be traitors.

It was the Empire. They were Alderaan's diabolical mustache twirling enemy. The audience is set up to hate the Empire. Is there something wrong with being traitors in that context?

Honestly, traitors or not, are they any less righteous? I actually like them more as traitors, it shows they took a stand even if it was just clandestine financial and political support and not material.

Patroklos wrote:I never really understood the logic behind people who must have Alderaan not be traitors.

It was the Empire. They were Alderaan's diabolical mustache twirling enemy. The audience is set up to hate the Empire. Is there something wrong with being traitors in that context?

Honestly, traitors or not, are they any less righteous? I actually like them more as traitors, it shows they took a stand even if it was just clandestine financial and political support and not material.

Because the Empire destroying a planet full of peaceful, law-abiding citizens for no reason but showing off its new wonderful toys shows exactly why it needs to be overthrown and cements it as utterly irredeemable. If they had blown up a planet in open or covert rebellion, it would still have been an act of gratuitous cruelty but then with a smidgen of justification behind it. We are never shown just how the Rebel Alliance conducts its uprising against the imperial regime outside of major military actions, but if it's anywhere close to how militant uprisings with the intent to to destroy an entire political system tend to proceed here on Earth, then it's understandable why the Empire would react with utmost force against it.

Patroklos wrote:I never really understood the logic behind people who must have Alderaan not be traitors.

It was the Empire. They were Alderaan's diabolical mustache twirling enemy. The audience is set up to hate the Empire. Is there something wrong with being traitors in that context?

Honestly, traitors or not, are they any less righteous? I actually like them more as traitors, it shows they took a stand even if it was just clandestine financial and political support and not material.

People have a gag reflex when it comes to treason- it sounds so bad that even if somebody is betraying for the highest of moral principles, there is still a sense of unease. In the broader sense, though, it doesn't really matter, much like it didn't matter how many of the My Lai villagers supported the NLF/Vietcong. The crime is, as you note, horrifying regardless.

PhilosopherOfSorts wrote: I personally think Tarkin was lucky that the Death Star was destroyed and he was killed onboard. I just can't really see Palpatine being pleased that Tarkin just up and decided to vaporize a core world on his own authority, but he might, just might, accept it as necessary, if it meant no more opposition to his rule. After Alderaan, Tarkin had two options, end the Rebellion, or die horribly, over a long period, several times.

Huh? Where did you get the idea that Tarkin came up with the idea of destroying Alderaan on his own authority? Palpatine does not strike me as the kind of character to give Tarkin free reign over the Death Star's superlaser. At the very least, he would have given Vader standing orders to Force-choke Tarkin to death if he decided, on his own, to use the superlaser.

Well baring any EU garbage, and my bad memory of the ANH Novelization, Tarken clearly came up with the idea on his own. I seems clear he had the authority to use the DS as he saw fit. He also clearly was out to make a statement as he referred to "an effective demonstration" in regards to Alderaan vs Dantooine. Someone important was gonna get toasted, that much is certain.

Honestly, even obliterating Coruscant, ignoring for the sake of argument, the galactic government being centered there, would have been only a minor drop in the bucket as far as population goes in the entire galaxy.