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DS vs. Empire

Posted: 2004-09-22 03:40pm
by Stravo
Say the rebel attack over Yavin failed. Luke is killed by Vader and Han arrives just in time to dispatch Vader. After elminating the rebel base Tarkin declares the Death Star the ultimate power in the universe. He sets course for Coruscant with the clear intention of seizing power.

Will the Imperial fleet be able to stop him and save Coruscant and the Empire?

Posted: 2004-09-22 03:48pm
by Darth Garden Gnome
No. Coruscant could be no more in brisk seconds if the Fleet challenged him.

Certaintly, the entirety of the Imperial Navy would be more than enough to eliminate the second Death Star (consider that its shield is similar in strength to a planetary one, which can be broken by certain vessels--nevermind the number of ships the Empire could throw at it), but its staggering, planet killing power is what makes it the real threat.

Whether or not the Empire would yield to him in such a situation is the bigger question. Palpatine would be long gone by the time Coruscant would be destroyed--if that happened at all--and even if they did get him, he would be back in another body. While Coruscant is hugely important to the Empire, I think the Emperor would consider it expendable, rather than surrender.

EDIT: Nevermind the situation this puts Tarkin in. If the Empire refuses to meet Tarkin's demands, what's he going to do, actually destroy Coruscant? His bargaining chip is gone, and he is turned to paste.

Posted: 2004-09-22 03:51pm
by Bertie Wooster
It comes down to if Tarkin could enter the Coruscant system, and destroy Coruscant before Palpatine could force choke him. I don't think Tarkin would be knowledgable of Palpatine's force abilities and so he and other command crew of the DS would be choked before the DS could fire.

Posted: 2004-09-22 04:47pm
by Illuminatus Primus
Emperor Palpatine kills Tarkin and his overbridge crew with the Force remotely as soon as the Death Star exits hyperspace. If the crew continues to resist, well, the Galactic Emperor has a small power known as Create Force Storm.

They will be wiped out...all of them.

Posted: 2004-09-22 04:55pm
by Darth Wong
Vader regained control of his fighter shortly after the destruction of DS1. If the torpedoes had missed, he probably would have taken out Luke followed by Han Solo and then landed. If Tarkin issued orders to kill Vader, Vader would simply Force-choke him and take control of the station himself.

Posted: 2004-09-22 05:15pm
by Ender
I'm sure this thread has NOTHING to do with any sort of upcomming battle in Starcrossed. :P

Posted: 2004-09-22 05:18pm
by Crazedwraith
Darth Wong wrote:Vader regained control of his fighter shortly after the destruction of DS1. If the torpedoes had missed, he probably would have taken out Luke followed by Han Solo and then landed. If Tarkin issued orders to kill Vader, Vader would simply Force-choke him and take control of the station himself.
OP stated that Vader killed Luke before he took the shot and then Han turns up and vapes Vader. Vaders not choking anyone as he's dead.

Posted: 2004-09-22 05:22pm
by Darth Garden Gnome
Gah, I always underestimate the powers of the Emperor. Listened to Yoda, I have not. :razz:

Well, I suppose my answer would work if Emperor was on vacation... or something.

Posted: 2004-09-22 05:23pm
by Stravo
Ender wrote:I'm sure this thread has NOTHING to do with any sort of upcomming battle in Starcrossed. :P
Shhhhh.....:wink:


Forget Palpy, say unknown to our friend Tarkin Palpy is on retreat to Byss so there's no force storms or force choking. Straight up Imperial fleet against Deathstar. Could the fleet take out the Death star head to head?

Posted: 2004-09-22 05:40pm
by Ender
Stravo wrote:
Ender wrote:I'm sure this thread has NOTHING to do with any sort of upcomming battle in Starcrossed. :P
Shhhhh.....:wink:


Forget Palpy, say unknown to our friend Tarkin Palpy is on retreat to Byss so there's no force storms or force choking. Straight up Imperial fleet against Deathstar. Could the fleet take out the Death star head to head?
Complete Imperial forces vs the Death Star... They should be able to. They will take horrific losses, but a number of bombard fleets and enough star battleships and star dreadnaughts should be able to punch throught the shields and eliminate the projectors and TLs in an area sufficient to allow steady pounding. The fleet then just rains down fire until it hits a fuel tank (as in the ejecta fuel, not the hypermatter fuel, no need to dig to the reactor). The pressure release from that vessel being cracked should pretty much destroy close at least a continent sized area. That will cripple it. Then its just a matter of time.

If you only have say 2 star dreadnaughts, 50 ISDs, and a few thousand far weaker ships... no. Not even if one of the Star Dreadnaughts was equipped with a SL and the fleet led by 2 Grand Admirals and a few men their equal in ability.

Posted: 2004-09-22 05:41pm
by Illuminatus Primus
There are lots of Dark Siders; Master Jerec, High Inquisitor Tremayne, etc. could similarly Force choke Tarkin, probably. Additionally, Palpatine can reach the Core Worlds from Byss faster than Tarkin from Yavin, and its not like Tarkin can easily get to sneak up on them: the station is full of probably millions of ISB officers and Intelligence agents, any one of which could try to get to a comm unit or ship and get word out. Not to mention Lord Vader himself, who, assuming he could not return to the Death Star, has the Force and a hyperdrive.

Going by the estimates of Imperial fleet size which are implied by Marina's estimates, the Dodonna calc as performed by Ender, the strategic and political arguments given by Saxton, and the raw industrial capacity personified by the Death Stars themselves: yes, it could and would.

The Empire churned HIMS Executor out of the yards at Fondor in just over two months. The second Death Star was over half built in six months. The first Death Star definitely appears to be a Grand Moff Tarkin specific project, and I would not be surprised if its construction was supported by his Oversector Outer alone. The Empire built the Tarkin battlestation just to test improvements on the Death Star concept, itself probably at least hundreds of times more massive than the Executor. The Eclipse II was churned out in a few months.

The strategic fleets' purpose probably was to keep unruly Moffs and members in line; Publius informed me that Garoth: Slave of the Empire depicts just such a force of "Imperial Star Destroyers"* moving in, deposing the Moff, replacing him, and leaving behind a Sector Group, and then going to do it again elsewhere.

*Note: I must clarify: by context, I would argue that the "Imperial Star Destroyers" are Star Destroyers in the generic sense, as in, any mainstream Imperial combat vessel larger than a star frigate, as opposed to "Star Destroyer" in the same sense as "star battlecruiser", ie. a "star destroyer." These vessels were probably more in line with such "Imperial Star Destroyers" as HIMS Executor, HIMS Shockwave, and the Kuat of Kuat's "Star Destroyer" - described as the largest vessel in his fleet, and probably more comparable to pre-Clone Wars equivalents of the same slot in the Kuati fleet (the Mandator-class star dreadnought) than ISDs.

Posted: 2004-09-22 05:46pm
by Ender
Random remark: We really need to agree on an acronym for star dreadnaught. It's a pain to constantly type that out; the one benefit of SSD was it's speed.

Posted: 2004-09-22 06:24pm
by consequences
Ender wrote:Random remark: We really need to agree on an acronym for star dreadnaught. It's a pain to constantly type that out; the one benefit of SSD was it's speed.
SDN?

Posted: 2004-09-22 06:26pm
by Lord Pounder
I don't thonk Palpy would even need to use the Force to disable the Death Star. Paply is a paranoid wee sith lord and has hard wired access in all the Imperial Navies ships. I consider it a reasonable assumption that Palpy would have enginered a back door into the DS computer system. So my theory is that while Tarkin thought he was in command of the DS Palpy had a way to over-ride him and disable the DS with a simple transmission.

Posted: 2004-09-22 06:32pm
by Illuminatus Primus
Ender wrote:Random remark: We really need to agree on an acronym for star dreadnaught. It's a pain to constantly type that out; the one benefit of SSD was it's speed.
DN = dreadnought; SDN for star dreadnought, SBB for star battleship, SCB for star battlecruiser, SC for star cruiser, SDL for star destroyers like the Allegiance, SDD or SD for star destroyer, SFF for star frigate. SCV for star carriers like the one in Giel's fleet.

Posted: 2004-09-22 06:33pm
by Illuminatus Primus
Lord Pounder wrote:I don't thonk Palpy would even need to use the Force to disable the Death Star. Paply is a paranoid wee sith lord and has hard wired access in all the Imperial Navies ships. I consider it a reasonable assumption that Palpy would have enginered a back door into the DS computer system. So my theory is that while Tarkin thought he was in command of the DS Palpy had a way to over-ride him and disable the DS with a simple transmission.
Pounder is probably right. The huge fleet, the legions of loyal underlings, Force sensitives, including himself, were all overlapping contingencies against this kind of thing. I don't think Tarkin really had a clue what he was contemplating.

Posted: 2004-09-22 06:54pm
by Rogue 9
Motti wanted to do exactly this, and Tarkin was looking favorably on the idea, but then stopped the conversation to deal with Yavin, to be continued after the battle. Of course the conversation was never continued, but I think Tarkin seemed to be going for it. (Reference: ANH Radio Drama.)

Posted: 2004-09-22 07:08pm
by Sharpshooter
All it'll take is a single booby-trapped droid: the second Palpy gets word of it, he'll press the button, the thing'll shuffle along to the bridge or Tarkin's quarters, and incinerate anything within ten meters.

If they manage to hit the same general area of the Death Star, the Imperial Fleet'll probably have a fair chance of taking it out: some Grand Admiral would probably have a system set up to feed firing data to a few hundred or thousand ships and have 'em fry the same fifty-meter area until they breach the shield and start razing the surface.

If the shit hits the fan and the Fleet itself can't cut it, they could possibly try and fit the Death Star prototype over at the Maw Installation (I know that Tarkin's technically the only one to know about it, but I wouldn't be too surprised at the Emperor somehow knowing as well) with a cobbled-together moon-suitable hyperdrive, using the fleet to slow down Tarkin until they can get the thing in a position to vape the station - or better yet, simple gouge out the superlaser.

Posted: 2004-09-22 07:38pm
by Praxis
Tough one. Defense force of Coruscant vs the DS.

I doubt he would destroy Coruscant, but I can easily see Tarkin taking out the flagship in orbit or a couple defense platforms with a low power superlaser blast. Or even better, firing the superlaser with JUST enough power to punch through the shields and vape the Emperor's fortress and a chunk of Coruscant, but not the whole planet.

He'd probably take out a chunk of the fleet with low powered superlaser blasts, but that'd only be the say 10 or 15 biggest ships. The fleet would take HEAVY losses, but they MIGHT stop the Death Star.

If they fail, then it comes down to if the Emperor survives.

If the Emperor survives the battle, he'll call every ship in the Empire to Coruscant and the DS is *dead*. Or he'll just crush the main reactor of the DS with the Force.

If the Emperor is killed somehow (orbital bombardment?), and Tarkin captures Coruscant, then either:
A) All Moffs declare themselves grand admirals or emperor and start fighting each other. Civil war ensues. The Empire wipes itself out. The Rebels come in and mop up the rest, then attack the Death Star (again?) with even more fighters this time, and if they get lucky they take out the exhaust port, if they get unlucky Tarkin wipes them out and rules the galaxy.
B) All Moffs rally under tarkin, who wipes out the rebels.

Re: DS vs. Empire

Posted: 2004-09-22 08:39pm
by Pablo Sanchez
Stravo wrote:Say the rebel attack over Yavin failed. Luke is killed by Vader and Han arrives just in time to dispatch Vader. After elminating the rebel base Tarkin declares the Death Star the ultimate power in the universe. He sets course for Coruscant with the clear intention of seizing power.
Palpatine isn't stupid. He wouldn't put the most powerful weapons system in the galaxy under the control of an incredibly ambitious and ruthless man like Tarkin without certain safeguards, of which Vader would be only one. More than likely the whole command staff of the Death Star belongs to Palpatine, along with the security forces. If Tarkin steps out of line he catches two in the body and one in the head and becomes famous for masterminding the shortest coup in Imperial history.

Posted: 2004-09-23 02:57am
by wautd
I would try to recapture it instead of completely destroy it. Use swarms of fighters to snipe the TL's in one area and after that boarding teams. Many many boarding teams

Hell, I think the DS Stormtroopers still stay loyal so it comes down to stormtroopers vs navy troopers which i give to stormies

Posted: 2004-09-23 03:39am
by LordShaithis
Does anyone else find all of Palpatine's EU superpowers just a bit wanky?

Posted: 2004-09-23 03:54am
by wautd
I know I do

Posted: 2004-09-23 04:30am
by Kazuaki Shimazaki
Illuminatus Primus wrote:Emperor Palpatine kills Tarkin and his overbridge crew with the Force remotely as soon as the Death Star exits hyperspace. If the crew continues to resist, well, the Galactic Emperor has a small power known as Create Force Storm.

They will be wiped out...all of them.
But does he know that power then, or good enough at it? He was supposed to, after he barely managed to traverse tens of thousands of light years in his soul and crawl into a clone body to have studied a lot more about the Dark Side, so this might have been his latest power.

The fact Luke found a brief recording regarding this power in Coruscant (DE), suggests he may have created at least the theoretical background of that sometime before ROTJ. Using it well is another problem.

If he has the power and could use it well in ROTJ, wouldn't it have been a very effective demonstration of the Dark Side to show Luke his latest Force Storm technique, which proceeds to wipe out the Alliance Fleet. Much more effective than even the superlaser in proving the Dark Side is the superior one, isn't it?

Of course, I suppose Palpatine could still choke Tarkin. Unless choking requires either visual contact or at least a vid-link visual contact, which would kind of explain why Admiral Ackbar wasn't simply choked on entry (another demonstration of the power of the Dark Side).

Besides, Tarkin's subordinates were supposedly selected by the Emperor. Most of them should be reasonably loyal to the Emperor.

As for Jerec and Tremayne, how good were they in comparison to Vader and the Emperor?

Posted: 2004-09-23 04:47am
by His Divine Shadow
Nope.