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Leia having to bring her ship to Alderaan in order to pass the Death Star plans to her father physically made me wonder whether the Rebels were ever depicted to be using long-range communications in the films?

We know that the technology definitely existed in the films as the empire and the Republic was using them. We also know that secret long-range transmission is possible with Sidious communicating to his underlings without detection. However, I don't remember the Rebels ever using any secret transmission or communications in the film.

Did the Rebels avoided using long-range communications to stay under the radar?

Leia probably didn't trust even secure communications to transmit the Death Star plans.

That being said, even if the Rebels had access to long-range comms, your average Rebel cell, organized like guerilla cells in real life, would've had little practical use for one. Even as the Rebellion gathered strength and grew larger, use of long-range comms still would've remained few and far between, as any such comm signals would've lit them up like a Life Day tree for the Imperials hunting them down.

There's still the question of why Leia didn't just upload the Death Star plans wikileaks style onto the Holonet. Everyone in the galaxy having access to the Death Star plans would have been quite a crimp in the Empire's plans.

In the old EU the Imperials had pretty thorough control over the HoloNet and were able to shut down portions or aspects of it when they wanted to. That would make it even less safe to use the HoloNet to transmit critical information.

Also, it seems as though Leia was hoping to avoid Imperial attention (at least until Vader caught up with her over Tatooine), using her status as an ambassador and a senatorial figure to deter the Imperial fleet from interfering with her. If she'd openly transmitted the Death Star plans on the net, or if transmission of the plans could be traced back directly to her ship, it would be hard for her to maintain that deniability.

Leia seems to have gotten her start as an aid to the Rebellion by using her social and political status as a 'princess' to do things that common Imperial citizens couldn't get away with. Until she ran into Darth Vader (who has the authority and arrogance to simply override her normal immunity from stops, searches, and so on), that may have been working out for her rather well. In which case she would certainly keep the sensitive information well compartmentalized, off the ship's computers (the stormtroopers don't find the plans there), and NOT under any circumstances post it on Youtube from the ship's lounge or whatever.

And that's assuming there even exists something akin to Youtube or Wikileaks, we got to remember that the large part why those exist in real life is that servers are in a country that's not willing to kill to shut them down.

I'm sure that no imperial Holonet provider would touch something akin to wikileaks with the proverbial 10ft pole since doing so would a great way to get a visit from the imperial authorities, with said visit most likely ending with the company assets siezed and employers arrested (and possibly executed).

It's probably also unlikely that Leia wants to let people know how to build their own Death Star, or just the superlaser part of it. Uploading plans for the most powerful weapon ever created to wikileaks would probably not be a good idea. Not the greatest analogy, but it would be like someone who wants to get rid of nuclear weapons uploading detailed plans for how to build an ICBM. It might let someone discover a weakness that the ICBM has, but now everyone and their mother knows exactly how to build one which just means you're back to square one. Except worse.

I suppose this question would mostly be the case at the end of ANH. In which it could have made more sense for the Millennium Falcon to have taken the Death Star on a wild goose chase, while the plans were uploaded to the HoloNet. Besides the problem of it even being possible or wise, look at the current problem with internet surveillance. Now consider what happens when one can have droids and sentient computers handle data analysis. The Empire can likely trace those who connect to it in real time. Someone connecting from Yavin or Hoth would be identified as a threat, as there were no known settlements on those worlds.

I could see the Rebels not using the HoloNet for communications for the same reason that groups like ISIS are hesitant about using cell phones. Look at Bin Laden's final compound, it didn't have a single networked device within its walls. Which is partially why it took the CIA as long as it did to find him.

The plans were transmitted to Leia/Tantive IV though. "Several transmissions were beamed to this ship by rebel spies, I want to know what happen to the plans they sent you'

Simon_Jester wrote:In the old EU the Imperials had pretty thorough control over the HoloNet and were able to shut down portions or aspects of it when they wanted to. That would make it even less safe to use the HoloNet to transmit critical information.

Restricted to the Core systems, selected Imperial command facilities in the Outer Rim, and, later, to Super Star Destroyer, if I remember the old EU correctly.

Crazedwraith wrote:The plans were transmitted to Leia/Tantive IV though. "Several transmissions were beamed to this ship by rebel spies, I want to know what happen to the plans they sent you'

According to the former EU, it was at relatively close range, from Rebel agents caught in a planetary blockade. Perhaps Rogue One will make it more plain what happened there.

U.P. Cinnabar wrote:

Crazedwraith wrote:The plans were transmitted to Leia/Tantive IV though. "Several transmissions were beamed to this ship by rebel spies, I want to know what happen to the plans they sent you'

According to the former EU, it was at relatively close range, from Rebel agents caught in a planetary blockade. Perhaps Rogue One will make it more plain what happened there.

While we don't know for sure, that does make sense. After all a short range "we have no other choice" transmition makes more sense, then risking detection and interception (and thus mission failure) with a long range communication as your first choice.

And, it would fit with how the Rebs got the information on the second Death Star, mainly through a trail of Bothan corpses who died to hand-carry the information to the top Rebel brass.

Well, that last bit was more implied by Mon Mothma's briefing than anything else.

(of course, in the former EU, that was the stepping stone Borsk Fey'lya used to gain power in the New Republic, and put himself in a position to seal its doom, but that's all non-canon now, and thank fuck for that)

U.P. Cinnabar wrote:And, it would fit with how the Rebs got the information on the second Death Star, mainly through a trail of Bothan corpses who died to hand-carry the information to the top Rebel brass.

Well, that last bit was more implied by Mon Mothma's briefing than anything else.

(of course, in the former EU, that was the stepping stone Borsk Fey'lya used to gain power in the New Republic, and put himself in a position to seal its doom, but that's all non-canon now, and thank fuck for that)

I always assumed the Bothans died in the process of getting the information (I blame Shadow of the Empire book)

hunter5 wrote:I always assumed the Bothans died in the process of getting the information (I blame Shadow of the Empire book)

That's also a possibility.

Does holonet have enough bandwidth to transmit the plans in a reasonable time ?

bilateralrope wrote:Does holonet have enough bandwidth to transmit the plans in a reasonable time ?

I suppose it depends on how the plans were stored but considering that Holonet transmitions seem to involved real time holograms being projected I suspect that there should enough bandwith to transmit the death star in a form that's still readble within reasonble timeframe.

Even if we assume that the bandwidth was there and that each rebel cell has a good quality long range communications device it is highly unlikely that any individual cell is going to have the coordinates of other cells, let alone a major rebel HQ to facilitate that sort of communication.

FaxModem1 wrote:There's still the question of why Leia didn't just upload the Death Star plans wikileaks style onto the Holonet. Everyone in the galaxy having access to the Death Star plans would have been quite a crimp in the Empire's plans.

Ah but then all the pro Imperial people in the Galaxy would also start looking at the plans, and might quickly warn the Empire of the stations absurdly dumb weakness. And while Leia didn't know if it even had such a weakness, if it did not then transmitting the plans would be futile anyway.

Sea Skimmer wrote:

FaxModem1 wrote:There's still the question of why Leia didn't just upload the Death Star plans wikileaks style onto the Holonet. Everyone in the galaxy having access to the Death Star plans would have been quite a crimp in the Empire's plans.

Ah but then all the pro Imperial people in the Galaxy would also start looking at the plans, and might quickly warn the Empire of the stations absurdly dumb weakness. And while Leia didn't know if it even had such a weakness, if it did not then transmitting the plans would be futile anyway.

If your moon-sized battlestation's only weakness is a secondary 2-meter wide exhaust port which requires a force user being also a good starfighter pilot and a sacrifice of 90% of enemy pilots to exploit, I think you did a good job.