Sun Crusher, would it be a better choice than the Death Star for the empire?

[WhiteLion]

I noticed that this weapon is never spoken, yet at first glance it seems to me one of the most beautiful and practical projects of all existing scifi series.
A weapon of just 13.5 meters, with an almost absolute defense capable of firing missiles capable of destabilizing stars, and if thrown at any ship they would destroy it instantly, cit. "could also be launched on any starship, destroying it instantly" - https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Sun_Crusher

The first time I read about it I fell in love, but never talks about it, it is true that it is no longer canon, but it is a masterpiece.
Imagine an SSD Executor with a fleet of these on board, they are also of little bulk, and would be an excellent deterrent.

Who would ever attack a ship armed with resonance torpedoes? It would be suicide, even if they destroy it, the star system where the war conflict took place would be extinguished.

I remember when I read the description the first thing I thought was why to build the Death Star, with the same funds they would have made thousands of ships armed with SC.

[Mr Bean]

The reason for the Death Star was as a future roving throne room/terror weapon to keep systems from pulling away from the Empire. One ship powerful enough on it's own to break the back of any sector fleet fully staffed by those loyal to the Empire. It's super weapon laser powerful enough to break planetary defense shields would normally render planets invulnerable to attacks by modest sized fleets. If a ship with a planetary shield network declares it's independence... either you get people inside to sabotage their defense grid or you have to bring a serious fleet of ships to smash your way in and it takes time and credits to do so.

The super-weapon of the Death Star is a threat, a big threat meant to be shoved in the faces of star systems to ensure they don't rebel or aide the rebellion on pain of being blown up. In an alt future you can imagine it showing up to star systems broadcasting remember what happen to Alderaan overthrow your government or die with them. The goal of the Death-Star is to give the Emperor a mobile command post with a big enough weapon he can show up and stop the fighting with one big flashy move if need be. It's job is not to blow up planets but to threaten such actions and have the means on hand to do so. In an ideal world a planet that rebels on seeing the Death Star simple meekly returns to the Empire fold once it arrives.

The Sun-Crusher offers none of that. Sure as a weapon of war it's amazing but the Empire controlled most of the galaxy and blowing up a sun not only destroys rebellious planets but the rest of the star-system as well. It makes a decent vengeance weapon but the technology as demonstrated in the books means you are hideously vulnerable to one rogue operative having access to a super weapon.

[Eternal_Freedom]

One reason why the Sun Crusher would be a bad choice is precisely because it's so small and nigh-invulnerable. Imagine one Imperial Admiral going rogue (as happened in Legends at least once) and seizing control of it and threatening, say, Coruscant's star with destruction of the Emperor doesn't surrender. They couldn't realistically seize control of the Death Star, so the Empire has some security there, but a Sun Crusher? Baaaad thing to have some looney running around with.

[WhiteLion]

Great points guys. To tell the truth I had not thought either of the planetary shields or the consequences of a possible betrayal by a ship armed with resonance torpedoes.
Surely the case of a betrayal would put the empire too much in danger. Perhaps an elite of ships with chosen and trusted crew, armed with resonance torpedoes, would have been more practical. It would have been a fast and lethal intervention force, as well as a trusted one.

For planetary shields, I don't know how resonance torpedoes would behave. The wikia reports that a resonance torpedo is capable of destroying any ship, I wonder if it can have the same effect against planetary shields. What do you know there are precedents of sun crusher that attacked planets?

[Eternal_Freedom]

There are no examples of the Sun Crusher attacking a planet directly. Not that it matters, if you've decided to total the planet anyway the Sun Crusher would do it's intended job and blow up the system's star - even if the planetary shield withstood the resulting shockwave/nova explosion, with no sunlight the planet is dead anyway.

Honestly, the Sun Crusher was a terrible idea for a "superweapon" dreamed up by a shitty author so a crazed Jedi could go on a rampage. The Galaxy Gun was a much more promising project.

To put it in perspective, it's like coming up with a planet-cracking nuclear weapon that can fit in the back of a pickup truck and be armed/detonated by one man rather than a hardened and heavily-guarded silo with an entire group of people needed to detonate it. Anyone who worked near said pickup truck/Sun Crusher could potentially seize control of it and go on a catastrophic rampage with little or no chance of stopping them.

[WhiteLion]

yes, you are absolutely right. I was fascinated by the fact that such a firepower and such a shield were of a ship of only 13 meters. Imagine if the Death Star had sun crusher on board, or just resonance torpedoes, the battle against the rebel fleet would have been different, it would have taken only one resonance torpedo to destroy the rebel fleet command ship, or any other ship.

[Ralin]

I always thought it weird that the resonance torpedoes were also able to blow up capital ships. Seemed like those would work on some science-y principle to set off a chain reaction in a star. If they're also destroy anything torpedoes on top of that why not kit out Star Destroyers with them too? Or build a Death Star armed with resonance torpedoes?

I actually liked the concept of the Sun Crusher as this tiny, hard to catch or detect ship that could slip in and destroy a solar system. That the resonance torpedoes could also be used as a direct weapon and the random, never to be replicated super armor on it seemed unnecessary.

[WhiteLion]

Maybe they didn't want to exaggerate with power, imagine a super Star Destroyer with the sun crusher's armor and a hundred resonance torpedo tubes. It would be virtually invincible. The resistance you would have made?

...... my heart is crying, such a ship would have been spectacular

[Batman]

You 'did' notice the part where the thing was expensive as fuck, right?

[Ralin]

You 'did' notice the part where the thing was expensive as fuck, right?

Because the Emperor is going to give a shit about that when he's building his eternal mobile galactic oppression palace?

[WhiteLion]

Well it was very expensive, but I imagine that building the Death Star twice was not exactly cheap.
If he had wanted to save money, he would have been able to create an Executor armed with resonance torpedoes, with a crew chosen among the most faithful soldiers, perhaps with a healthy, sith brainwashing.
An SSDE with a hundred resonance torpedo tubes .... would have been far more practical and lethal than Death Star.

[Esquire]

Well it was very expensive, but I imagine that building the Death Star twice was not exactly cheap.
If he had wanted to save money, he would have been able to create an Executor armed with resonance torpedoes, with a crew chosen among the most faithful soldiers, perhaps with a healthy, sith brainwashing.
An SSDE with a hundred resonance torpedo tubes .... would have been far more practical and lethal than Death Star.

Hard disagree. It's vast overkill on the strategic scale (one [eyeroll] resonance torpedo [/eyeroll] kills stars just as well as a hundred of them, and an Executor has a rather lower percentage of stormtroopers to naval ratings than the Death Star does (or could/ought to, anyway)). Therefore, if I were the Emperor, I'd choose the relatively selective and secure weapon over the relatively gratuitous and risky one.

[Ralin]

Hard disagree. It's vast overkill on the strategic scale (one [eyeroll] resonance torpedo [/eyeroll] kills stars just as well as a hundred of them, and an Executor has a rather lower percentage of stormtroopers to naval ratings than the Death Star does (or could/ought to, anyway)). Therefore, if I were the Emperor, I'd choose the relatively selective and secure weapon over the relatively gratuitous and risky one.

I'm not sure whether you're disagreeing with the idea of a Super Executor or a Super Death Star, but my point was that basically invincible armor seems like it would be a huge deal all by itself and that's really just an afterthought to the whole "Terror weapon that can drive a star nova" concept.

I can buy that it might be impractical to make enough of it for large scale use in the regular navy, but surely Palpatine would see the value of having an invulnerable ship for his own personal use. And surely Palpatine would want that ship to be terrifyingly well-armed, and so on. Might not be an efficient use of resources, but Palpatine had a penchant for the big gesture when it came to these things.

[bilateralrope]

Perhaps an elite of ships with chosen and trusted crew,

Could a Sith ever trust anyone to the degree this would require ?

Remember that a core part of Sith ideology is that the Sith Apprentice must turn on his Master and kill him at some point.

[Ralin]

Could a Sith ever trust anyone to the degree this would require ?

Remember that a core part of Sith ideology is that the Sith Apprentice must turn on his Master and kill him at some point.

That's why he had Vader, an army of stormtroopers and Tarkin all on the same Death Star to balance each other out.

And a non-indestructible, capital ship-sized Sun Crusher seems like it would be a lot harder to steal from him than that thing Han Solo and Kyp Durron stole from the Maw.

[Solauren]

The only real use I can see for the Suncrusher/Resonator torpedo combo is fleet hunting.

The Death Star shows up near your fleet, you jump out. (it's a siege weapon, not a hunter/killer)

The Suncrusher, could hyper into a system with a fleet in it, fire off a single torpedo on the other side of the star, and hyper out. Then, the star explodoes, and takes out the enemy fleet.

After all, Daala's crew couldn't detect Stars near them were about to explode, and they knew how the damn thing worked (or at least, a general idea), right up until the Stars were about to explode, and they barely survived.

Heck, that would be an effective Anti-Vong weapon, come to think of it. Or, if Palapatine's 'ROTJ novel' plans were followed through, a very nice enemy fleet eliminator for when he went conquering other galaxies.

However, for anything else, it's overkill.

Hell, if I was Palpatine, and Tarkin had given me that ship, I would have...
Thanked him.
Had all data related to it moved to my personal tablet computer.
Checked the minds of all involved for possible leaks of the data.
And then would have killed everyone involved.

Yes, nice concept, but not something any Dark Lord wants running around. It could be turned on him.

[KraytKing]

Yeah, gotta agree. This thing is a total loose cannon. Is indestructible armor even worth having if it could be stolen? Would it be worthwhile to have an unkillable SSD if there's a chance someone you don't like could get ahold of it? I would think not. If I were the Emperor, I'd just torch the whole Maw facility. Throw all the scientists and their work into the black holes. If there is any chance that someone other than me could become invincible, I'd rather just rely on my already overwhelming conventional power.

[Ralin]

Yes, nice concept, but not something any Dark Lord wants running around. It could be turned on him.

Yeah, gotta agree. This thing is a total loose cannon. Is indestructible armor even worth having if it could be stolen? Would it be worthwhile to have an unkillable SSD if there's a chance someone you don't like could get ahold of it?

Actually...for someone like Palpatine it might be a uniquely manageable superweapon. Consider, Palpatine has magic psychic powers. We see Vader Force Choke someone from another ship in the original movies. Palpatine can presumably do much more. The Sun Crusher can only hold a small crew and can be piloted by one guy. Gotta figure that Palpatine (whose magic powers would also probably warn him of threats like someone planning to blow up the star nearest to him) can find ways remotely incapacitate one or a few guys. Or even just telekinetically grab the ship and disable it. He was really, really powerful. This is the guy who buried the Lusankya under Coruscant without anyone noticing or remembering.

Sure, someone like Vader getting a hold of it would be problematic, but Palpatine put the screws into him psychologically and worst case scenario he still has his clone bodies to fall back on.

And it's not like the Sun Crusher is unstoppable in direct combat. If I remember right Daala nearly caught Kyp in a tractor beam at one point. Can't remember if he got out of that by firing one of the resonance torpedoes (I still think it's a bad idea to have the make a star go nova missile also be a blow up anything missile), but it can only hold so many of those things. Palpatine has capital ships to spare.

[KraytKing]

That is true, I forgot about long distance TK.

[bilateralrope]

Sure, Palpatine can probably stop the Sun Crusher if he's in the same system as it.

But what if it goes after the Empire's infrastructure ?
For example, shipyards or military training facilities. Or whichever worlds are producing the food Coruscant eats.

[Solauren]

Very quickly, the Sun Crusher, as written, could take out a dozen major targets. Imagine if the 12 largest food suppliers were taken out in the course of a few hours.

[Ralin]

That's why it's a super weapon.

[PREDATOR490]

The Sun Crusher ship is not the super-weapon just like the Death Star station is not the super-weapon.

The ship and station house the weapon - In the case of the Death Star, the super-laser has been deployed in lesser forms on smaller ships with a reduction in power / effect.

The key difference with the Sun Crusher is the super weapon is based on a finite amount of torpedoes. Given the size of the craft, it seems likely that you could put those torpedoes on any ship of similar or greater size and still achieve the same effect. The only issue is if the weapon requires an exotic platform like the Sun Crusher to work. I do not see that as being the case as it was depicted. At best, a specialised torpedo launcher would be the logical thing that would need to be installed.

As for the torpedoes themselves, I got the impression they only worked on stars. They do not work as direct weapons which makes the overall utility a bit useless. Unless your target is sitting in a system with a star then the torpedoes are useless.
Equally, if your target is sitting in a system which is populated by friendlies your running into serious issues of cost / benefit.

I would anticipate this ends up going the same way as the Nova bombs from Andromeda. 'Specialised' armament on the larger warships which are then used as needed with a significant trust / overwatch threshold to get to that position. Granted, the Empire might be more volatile an organisation to put system destroying weapons in the standard armament but if we are applying some common sense to the Empire then it would be manageable.

The armour of the Sun Crusher would certainly be useful but the impression was this armour was extremely rare / expensive. Just like cloaking systems in Star Wars. If this armour could be mass-produced then it is common sense for the Empire or anyone to start laying that stuff on everything.
However, the details of the armour properties and production are scarce enough that it is really speculative to conclude anything about how feasible or practical it would be to deploy.

At best, the Sun Crusher was an interesting proto-type of some interesting elements that were combined to create a plot device for a narrative.

As a super-weapon - The Sun Crusher and Death Star have already been one-upped thanks to The Last Jedi.

HYPERDRIVE RAMMING

The only contribution the Sun Crusher could make to that is by covering the ram-kill object in Sun Crusher armour.

[Ralin]

As for the torpedoes themselves, I got the impression they only worked on stars. They do not work as direct weapons which makes the overall utility a bit useless. Unless your target is sitting in a system with a star then the torpedoes are useless.

Nah, there's a scene where Kyp fires one of them at a Star Destroyer and it results in either a dead Star Destroyer or the Star Destroyer evading frantically to avoid being destroyed. Would have to look it up. Like I said, thought it was odd that they worked as regular direct weapons against other ships on top of exploding stars.

[WhiteLion]

But it already exists, these scenarios that foresee a possible appropriation by hostile forces are already applicable, wouldn't it have made more sense not to build it at all?