In terms of the idea of keeping the peace in the same fashion as the Old Republic, it would make sense that they would in effect be replacing the Jedi with the Imperial military. With the Death Star it would be possible to have complete control, without the Senate.
This also fits the apparent difficulty of the Outer Rim Sieges mentioned in ROTS. Presumably the Republic went up against planetary shielding there as well. Though given that we never saw full planetary shields in the Clone Wars series, perhaps the technology proliferated more as the Clone Wars died down and the Empire tried to consolidate its power. As more prosperous worlds saw the destruction caused by the first galactic war in a millennia, they began to realize just how destructive serious naval weapons* could be and began developing at least theater shields. Full encompassing planetary shields were also presumably build in large numbers in the core worlds, hence Alderaan having one.
* Given that in TPM the Trade Federation battleship had only point defense guns and that the Republic cruiser shown was completely unarmed, it was likely that serious heavy naval weapons were extremely limited in their deployment. The AOTC ICS also stated that there were heavier capital ships found around core worlds, but that they were incapable of deploying to the front lines. Presumably there were treaty restrictions on capital ships. Either they could mount serious weapons or long range hyperdrives, not both. The rearming for the Clone Wars changed this and we see proper capital ships fighting for the first time in at least a millennia.
And it is also possible that this time around the destruction is far greater than it was previously. Given that there are currently no canon sources from this era, it is effectively impossible to judge, but based on what we saw in KOTOR it appears that weapons are much less powerful overall. The damage done to Taris certainly wasn't in the MT-GT range of Clone Wars/Imperial era turbolasers. This also fits the fact that personal shields were common in that era and cotorsis was commonly used in armor and swords, enough so that lightsabers frequently had a hard time penetrating them. This would have been impossible against stronger weapons. And in the Darth Bane trilogy we saw that the Republic still used capital ship designs from the KOTOR era, even 3,000 years later, implying that the technology hadn't advanced that much. Cotorsis was also presumably still used heavily in this era as Bane was a miner of it before becoming the Sith Lord. Presumably there was something of a technological renaissance during the millennia of peace in which things advanced significantly*.
* Clone Wars shows that Darth Bane exists if nothing else, though the rest of these comments are almost entirely speculation based on a now non-canon source.
Galvatron wrote:That was not always the popular line of thinking, however. EU wankers (not to mention some SWvST debaters) loved the idea of invincible Imperial star destroyers. I had to continually point out that TESB showed us top-of-the-line Imperial warships were not only virtually useless against planetary shields but were also highly vulnerable against planetary weaponry (e.g. the rebel ion cannon).
In the old EU there were also weapons like Torpedo Spheres that were able to break through shields with finesse and localized firepower rather than raw power. Presumably such things were in limited use, otherwise Vader would have one. Though the Clone Wars era destroyer all have heavy torpedo launchers for presumably the same purpose of planetary bombardment, though there is no mention of what to do against shields. It's possible that most shields used during the Clone Wars were theater rather than encompassing, thus the heavy reliance on ground armies.
Borgholio wrote:General Veers clearly stated that they could not penetrate Hoth's shield from orbit. It's only sensible to assume he was referring to the entire fleet's combined firepower. And if the Rebel Scum™ can find that kind of shield, large and wealthy worlds like Alderaan could easily afford shields that could stop any normal fleet.
Wayne Poe's old site argued that what it really meant was a
clean bombardment. I believe the radio dramas backed up this interpretation. Though given that those aren't canon anymore, what we see is what we get, It is probably more that it would take too long to realistically break through, not that it would be completely impossible.
Elheru Aran wrote:IIRC, while there are no specifically named BDZ operations, there are a few incidents of planetary bombardment in Clone Wars, which remains canon... I think. So you can extrapolate from that.
In the series or in earlier sources? Only the series is still canon and I can't remember any examples from it, though it is possible that I missed it somewhere, I haven't seen the entire series.
The Romulan Republic wrote:Actually, it came up in a thread here a while ago that the term Base Delta Zero was referenced on the show Rebels. I suppose it could have a different meaning now, but I doubt it.
Amusingly it is mentioned in Imperial Propaganda as a means of planetary liberation, something that is scoffed at by the characters. Based on what we have seen from the novels released recently, as well as Clone Wars/Rebels, it seems that many of the general setting details from the EU are unchanged, simply that most of the events have been altered. Though Simon is right that it would logically only work against unshielded worlds. And as the worlds worth occupying likely had shields, that leads to something of a problem.
