OK, I know that Saxton didn't authorize this in HIS ITW

[consequences]

Edit: addressed to CC's points


No, cities and planets are not the same thing. However, if someone is going to pick an analogy, they should use one where the circumstances suit the argument they are trying to make. The paragraph I was responding to was bullshit, on too many levels for me to ignore.



For the fight to the death, the boarding of the Tantive 4. Unless I'm missing something, there was a little bit of fighting retreat, but no real effort to surrender, or even run like a bitch while the stormtroopers concentrated on active threats.

[Captain Cyran]

For the fight to the death, the boarding of the Tantive 4. Unless I'm missing something, there was a little bit of fighting retreat, but no real effort to surrender, or even run like a bitch while the stormtroopers concentrated on active threats.

Ok, I understand the first part now. As for the second part, do we have any proof that these men were all Alderaanians? Or for that matter the ship was even from Alderaan? All we're told is that they were on their way TO Alderaan on a Diplomatic mission.

[Stofsk]

For the fight to the death, the boarding of the Tantive 4. Unless I'm missing something, there was a little bit of fighting retreat, but no real effort to surrender, or even run like a bitch while the stormtroopers concentrated on active threats.

Except they did surrender; we saw prisoners being taken. Vader interrogated Captain Antilles for fuck's sake.

[Lord of the Farce]

Alderaan is a very wealthy and elitist world, with a simultaneously low population density - it has more in common with the opulent and spread-out estates in Malibu, southern California than a colony of mountain men. There's no evidence that the world is self-sustaining. In fact I reason it is a sheltered, ivory-tower estate world for the intelligentsia and elite of the Alderaanian state and probably wholly reliant on her colonies and dependencies for survival.
-snip

One word: Droids. Another one: Hydroponics. Yet another: Caves.

This is silly and absurd. Lando Calrissian notes in Specter of the Past that a majority of the Imperial forces were never concerned with the Rebellion.

Oh, so that's why the majority of Imperial forces were spread all over the galaxy in a vain attempt to chase the Rebels (ref. ROTJ).

And cite your source on the framing terror attacks – that’s something the Imperial Storm Commandos do.

Except that we have the first hand statement of a "planet liberationist" (Elscol Loro) about bombing civilians as an option, the primary goal being "waking" the planetary population to the war (in fact, she implied that she's done this kind of thing on dozens of worlds).
And how exactly do you "wake" people up? You don't do so by blowing up the people you want to side with you, then claiming responsibility. So obviously, she (and others just like her) would have done so in a way to implicate the Imperials.

Anyway, but of course, everyone’s in secret collusion with Bail Organa;: it’s an absolute imperative to totally obliterate the planet. Mmmhmm. Right.

So everyone in Hiroshima and Nagasaki - men, women, and children - were justifiable targets?

[Lord of the Farce]

For the fight to the death, the boarding of the Tantive 4. Unless I'm missing something, there was a little bit of fighting retreat, but no real effort to surrender, or even run like a bitch while the stormtroopers concentrated on active threats.

Except they did surrender; we saw prisoners being taken. Vader interrogated Captain Antilles for fuck's sake.

Or they were captured after being stunned (or run out of ammunition, and subdued).

[Stofsk]

Just out of curiosity, how many of the people screaming about the evil atrocity of Alderaan feel that Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Tokyo, Dresden etc. were also evil atrocities?

I do. The firebombings of Dresden and Tokyo were nothing more than revenge attacks; Hiroshima and Nagasaki are more murky, because they (the US) wanted the war to be over ASAP, which I can't fault them for, but the destruction was certainly atrocious.

Anyway I was pointing out that strictly speaking the destruction of Alderaan was a clear case of genocide on the Empire's part, and I was replying to others who didn't accept that or refused to. I never said the Empire wasn't justified in doing what they did; I simply said "this is what they are guilty of."

[Stofsk]

Or they were captured after being stunned (or run out of ammunition, and subdued).

That's still a surrender. If they were 'fanatics' that Consequences seems to want to portray then they would have fought on with butter knives, if it would have delayed the stormies long enough for escape pods to be launched.

Did the Imperials fire on escape pods btw?

[Captain Cyran]

Or they were captured after being stunned (or run out of ammunition, and subdued).

That's still a surrender. If they were 'fanatics' that Consequences seems to want to portray then they would have fought on with butter knives, if it would have delayed the stormies long enough for escape pods to be launched.

Did the Imperials fire on escape pods btw?

"There goes another one." "Should we shoot it?" "No, there's no lifeforms in there." (Roughly.)

[consequences]

Or they were captured after being stunned (or run out of ammunition, and subdued).

That's still a surrender. If they were 'fanatics' that Consequences seems to want to portray then they would have fought on with butter knives, if it would have delayed the stormies long enough for escape pods to be launched.

Did the Imperials fire on escape pods btw?

Well, to hear Rogue tell it, they all should have offered the Stormtroopers crumpets freshly buttered with their plastic non-edged knives, as Alderaan has no weapons.


The mere fact that we saw no-one doing the bug-out boogie from the firefight tells us that these troops were highly disciplined. The situation was obviously completely hopeless before the Stormtroopers even came through the bulkhead, and any reasonable people would have quietly sat in their quarters with their hands over their heads. Even after most of their comrades were dead, the survivors were attempting to resist, which speaks of fanatacism from any reasonable perspective. Unless, of course, you think the normal response of a unit that is outgunned, outmanned, and in a hopeless tactical situation to start with is to fight on to the bitter end.
The captain of the ship either acted out of complete ignorance
in attempting to defy a ship an order of magnitude more dangerous than his own, which means he's simply a stupid fanatic, or he did so out of a sense of mission, and held to his cover even in the face of the Dark Lord of the Sith killing him, which means he's a very dedicated fanatic(although stupidity is not ruled out in this case). Listen to Princess Leia,and her obvious contempt for the Empire, and try to tell me she hasn't been heavily indoctrinated in anti-Imperial propaganda.


From a delay perspective, standing in the middle of the hallway with their hands on their heads would have delayed the stormtroopers more than their firefight did, whether the Stormies took the time to take them prisoner,
or simply shot them all and had to get over the pile of bodies. Instead, the rebels conveniently positioned themselves against the walls, and scattered so as to present no major obstacle when they died.

[Rogue 9]

Yes, the Imperials did shoot occupied escape pods.

[Stofsk]

Conceded: only fanatics stand against the Imperial Stormtroopers.

But they still surrendered, as evidenced that there were prisoners taken. They couldn't have all been 'stupid fanatics', but they did seem professional (ie. they fought when they were told to, damn the consequences); this makes Leia's little white lie plainly obvious. Not that I blame her. If someone put a gun to my mother's head I would say all sorts of bullshit too, in an effort to placate them. What else could I, or Leia, do?

[consequences]

Conceded: only fanatics stand against the Imperial Stormtroopers.

But they still surrendered, as evidenced that there were prisoners taken. They couldn't have all been 'stupid fanatics', but they did seem professional (ie. they fought when they were told to, damn the consequences); this makes Leia's little white lie plainly obvious. Not that I blame her. If someone put a gun to my mother's head I would say all sorts of bullshit too, in an effort to placate them. What else could I, or Leia, do?

Man that's like the third time I've been Damned around here, can I at least get my Travel Vouchers processed before I end up back in Tartarus?


Its not quite as bad as you are conceding, but I would say that only fanatics fight Imperial Stormtroopers that outnumber the entire crew of the ship by at least ten to one when your ship has already been disabled. Of course, the attacker would have to be redshirts or worse before the defenders lose even half of the fanatic points they would accrue from that fight, unless they can reasonably expect to counterboard and secure the enemy vessel, then it becomes a reasonable tactical ploy. So a Culture Drone being attacked would not score as a fanatic in this case, , although the soon to be combat casualty statistics arrayed against it would.

Father's head, Leia's mother would have been dead for years by then if her dialogue in RotJ was accurate. And she picked about the best choice she reasonably could, any major world and they would know she was lying, and Dantooine had the requisite evidence of prior occupation, so that she could always claim that she didn't have sufficient need to know for them to tell her the base had been moved. But Tarkin had to shout 'Wot a Big Tonker Oi've got' to the galaxy. The putz.

[Rogue 9]

Or they were captured after being stunned (or run out of ammunition, and subdued).

That's still a surrender. If they were 'fanatics' that Consequences seems to want to portray then they would have fought on with butter knives, if it would have delayed the stormies long enough for escape pods to be launched.

Did the Imperials fire on escape pods btw?

Well, to hear Rogue tell it, they all should have offered the Stormtroopers crumpets freshly buttered with their plastic non-edged knives, as Alderaan has no weapons.

And had they done so, they would have been lined against the fuggin' wall and shot, so as to eliminate witnesses. The Tantive was destroyed in such a manner as to make it appear an accident and all prisoners save Leia killed to cover up for the fact that the Empire ignored the vessel's diplomatic immunity. When the Senate learns of this? The Senate would never learn of it; Vader saw to that.

[Enforcer Talen]

Just out of curiosity, how many of the people screaming about the evil atrocity of Alderaan feel that Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Tokyo, Dresden etc. were also evil atrocities?

I do. The firebombings of Dresden and Tokyo were nothing more than revenge attacks; Hiroshima and Nagasaki are more murky, because they (the US) wanted the war to be over ASAP, which I can't fault them for, but the destruction was certainly atrocious.

Anyway I was pointing out that strictly speaking the destruction of Alderaan was a clear case of genocide on the Empire's part, and I was replying to others who didn't accept that or refused to. I never said the Empire wasn't justified in doing what they did; I simply said "this is what they are guilty of."

dresden was a military target, as far as I know - and tokyo *was* the capital of the friendly country that had played in nanking, bataan, and all the rest.

[Rogue 9]

Just out of curiosity, how many of the people screaming about the evil atrocity of Alderaan feel that Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Tokyo, Dresden etc. were also evil atrocities?

I do. The firebombings of Dresden and Tokyo were nothing more than revenge attacks; Hiroshima and Nagasaki are more murky, because they (the US) wanted the war to be over ASAP, which I can't fault them for, but the destruction was certainly atrocious.

Anyway I was pointing out that strictly speaking the destruction of Alderaan was a clear case of genocide on the Empire's part, and I was replying to others who didn't accept that or refused to. I never said the Empire wasn't justified in doing what they did; I simply said "this is what they are guilty of."

dresden was a military target, as far as I know - and tokyo *was* the capital of the friendly country that had played in nanking, bataan, and all the rest.

[Japan] But Nanking never happened! [/Japan]

[consequences]

That's still a surrender. If they were 'fanatics' that Consequences seems to want to portray then they would have fought on with butter knives, if it would have delayed the stormies long enough for escape pods to be launched.

Did the Imperials fire on escape pods btw?

Well, to hear Rogue tell it, they all should have offered the Stormtroopers crumpets freshly buttered with their plastic non-edged knives, as Alderaan has no weapons.

And had they done so, they would have been lined against the fuggin' wall and shot, so as to eliminate witnesses. The Tantive was destroyed in such a manner as to make it appear an accident and all prisoners save Leia killed to cover up for the fact that the Empire ignored the vessel's diplomatic immunity. When the Senate learns of this? The Senate would never learn of it; Vader saw to that.

We saw prisoners being led somwhere, the only one we have confirmation of death on is Captain Antilles. If they are all going to be shot, it really doesn't matter hwere the bodies land when the ship is going to be nuked anyway.

Unless of course, there's something in the novel/radio play/ Super championship hyper mega turbo edition DVD plus edition/EU that says otherwise, in which case the Stormtroopers were presumably searching them for intel before disposal. Possibly down to a full dissection to search for the plans. But even with this speculation, AFAIK, their possibility of death doesn't rate more than a 'maybe'.

With that I really need to get to bed, I knew there was a reason I was trying to avoid this discussion.[/i]

[Captain Cyran]

This entire fanatic argument is down the drain anyway unless someone can post proof that the soldiers on the Tantive were from Alderaan almost exclusively.

[Rogue 9]

Antilles is a Corellian name, so I doubt it.

[Stofsk]

dresden was a military target, as far as I know - and tokyo *was* the capital of the friendly country that had played in nanking, bataan, and all the rest.

Not the point: the destruction was atrocious, and in the case of Dresden (and Tokyo, I believe) the ordinance was selected to maximise damage. Imperial Japan committed atrocities, as did Nazi Germany. Allies committed their own atrocities, not to the same extent but this is war: neither side will remain spotless and untarnished by the end.

I don't think Dresden was a military target though, but someone like Vympel would know for sure and correct me if I am wrong.

[Icehawk]

IIRC Dresden was technically a military target. But the level of death the USAF dished out was much more than necessary, I would think they new very well their ordinance would cause the firestorms and kill plenty of innocents along with their "intended" targets.

[Kurgan]

Mr. Wong: I feel that the firebombings and the nukings of civilians in WW2 by the Allied Powers were atrocities, yes. Did they help win the war? That's debatable, but were they war crimes? In my view they definately were.

W00t!

So people are now saying that Alderaan officially only had a few million people? [quoting StarWars databank]

Well okay. But the Death Star officially only has 1 million. So Alderaan still has more people than the Death Star.

It seems folks are wanting to have it both ways. Maximize the population of the Death Star (multiple billions), and minimize the population of Alderaan (only a few million), both ignoring official sources. At least populating the Death Star with millions of droids makes sense from the standpoint of manpower required (why else do you need that many bodies on a space station?). We need not assume that the Empire doesn't trust droids, since they canonically use them on the station and for other jobs. We need not assume the 50 stormtroopers and 20 officers (or however many there were) we see in ANH is a true sampling of the entire 160 km (or 120 km official) surface/interior of the station.

Sorry, this is just such a huge thread that I'm replying to really old stuff. My apologies...

I've enjoyed reading this thread btw, just hard to keep up when you're not checking it constantly! ; )

[vakundok]

Destroying cities by a new terror weapon to force all others (the state) to surrender in a war is not evil.
Destroying planet(s) by a new terror weapon to force all others not to support the insurgents in a civil war is evil.
It seems that some of us have double standards ...

... Evil is a term describing that which is morally bad, corrupt, wantonly destructive, selfish, and wicked. It is one half of the duality of good and evil expressed, in some form or another, by many cultures. It describes a hierarchy of moral standards with regard to human behaviour; evil being the least desired, while love is usually the most praised. In essence "evil" is a term for those things which (either directly or causally) bring about withering and death- the opposite of life. In casual or derogatory use, the word "evil" can characterize people and behaviours that are hurtful, ruinous, or disastrous. ...

Was the (old) Republic evil? It was corrupt, many of the leaders were selfish, it made possible for example to the TF to cause severe damage to planets, it restricted its only 'justice brigade', it left the inhabitants of Naboo to suffer and die in 'camps' ...

I think the idea of the (old) Republic was good but it was just as utopistic as the socialism (the theoretical one, not the one here which was named as socialism) and as a result unable to work in large scales (time and size).
In my opinion starting a civil war to restore a system which did not work in the past is evil because the people will surely suffer and they will not gain anything for long (for generations).

It is interesting to see how this topic has changed from the ITW (and more closely the shield network on Endor defending the DS in it) ...

[Rogue 9]

Destroying cities by a new terror weapon to force all others (the state) to surrender in a war is not evil.
Destroying planet(s) by a new terror weapon to force all others not to support the insurgents in a civil war is evil.
It seems that some of us have double standards ...

... Evil is a term describing that which is morally bad, corrupt, wantonly destructive, selfish, and wicked. It is one half of the duality of good and evil expressed, in some form or another, by many cultures. It describes a hierarchy of moral standards with regard to human behaviour; evil being the least desired, while love is usually the most praised. In essence "evil" is a term for those things which (either directly or causally) bring about withering and death- the opposite of life. In casual or derogatory use, the word "evil" can characterize people and behaviours that are hurtful, ruinous, or disastrous. ...

Was the (old) Republic evil? It was corrupt, many of the leaders were selfish, it made possible for example to the TF to cause severe damage to planets, it restricted its only 'justice brigade', it left the inhabitants of Naboo to suffer and die in 'camps' ...

I think the idea of the (old) Republic was good but it was just as utopistic as the socialism (the theoretical one, not the one here which was named as socialism) and as a result unable to work in large scales (time and size).
In my opinion starting a civil war to restore a system which did not work in the past is evil because the people will surely suffer and they will not gain anything for long (for generations).

It is interesting to see how this topic has changed from the ITW (and more closely the shield network on Endor defending the DS in it) ...

"Here I stand, I can do no other." -- Martin Luther. Man, I've been using that one a lot lately.

Look at the alternative to rebellion. I would fight the Empire as well after the manner in which it was formed and the behavior it indulged in after subjugating most of the galaxy. Don't you dare tell me for one solitary second that revolution is automatically evil. It's the cause behind that decides whether it's justified or not. Are you next going to say that the American Revolution was evil just because the revolutionaries didn't know for certain that their replacement system would work? Hell, through most of the Revolution there wasn't a concrete idea for a replacement; they wanted to make George Washington king! Under different circumstances, the American Republic would have certainly failed. Would the attempt to form it then be evil?

[Connor MacLeod]

To make a hull hugging shield implies highly variable geometry. That shields can be formed into stalks can be seen in the DSII shield.

Nothing about the DS2 shield suggests they can be formed into "stalks" - I just had this argument with vakundok. I can cite at least several examples that suggest it is more of a specialized application than a "standarD" capability of planetary shields. Besides which, you completely ignored the fact that your theory requires the assumption that they can do this across hundreds of kilometers distance. On top of that, you further ignored the "number of ships" I asked for.

Besides, as I already stated, even assuming this ability exists, it simply makes your theory far more complicated than the competing ones.

Umm, I really don't know what you are visualizing in the paragraph. But I wanted to take the protected area clean off the planet. Kind of like this

Y-axis -->
Ship---(Tractor)---[Protected] (Air) GGGGroundddd

There should be no timing problems.

Oh this is so much better! Now you're simply assuming that they were able to automatically tear out a large section of the ground around your "shield stalk", and maintain this effect without anyone noticing, being tossed about, or any noticable damage effects occured. A feat that not only (still) denies the fleet its tractor beams for deflecting debris (as well as requiring them to exert force agianst the planet to counter the "pull" on the tractors as well), but it would require extensive coordination between the different ship's tractor beams to maintain the effect. And this still assumes they can get the effect through the shields.

But it is also said tractor beams are gravitic (Onslaught). How can a shield really block gravity when they themselves can supposedly be ripped off by it.

Oh, so instead of merely being blocked by the shields, you now think that those tractor beams would suck away the shields you need to protect the Rebels on the ground? How is this exactly better for your theory?

(PS: You might try asking yourself if tractro beams could bypass shields, why the Rebels simply didn't trash the generator from orbit with starship tractor beams. - or why no such tactic is ever used against shielded targets, for that matter. On top of that you failed to consider the differences between a dovin basal and a trractor beam - I am aware of no instance of a tractor beam being used to form an artificial "pseudo-black hole". Or for that matter, why are we assuming Dovin Basals generate gravity? Just because it says so? What about their "plasma cannons that aren't really plasma?" Or how about the fact there is evidence that Vong biotech is Force-powered, which means that instead of gravity it might be telekinesis or a miniature "force storm"? Not that it matters, since having tractor beams eat the shields rather than being blocked by them still hurts your theory.)

Don't worry. I am quite aware of the potential problems in my theory. However, it is the best I can come up with on short notice without a planetary facility.

Which would suggest.. a planetary facility of some sort is neccessary to explain why everyone was not immediately fried by impact of the debris?

It helps that we are really like a Borg cube in a CME (lots of energy total, but due to the small area we are actually in contact with, the energy absorption is low)

Which does not help when we should be seeing evidencee of shield interactions with all the energy the planet absorbed and still retains, even hours after the fact. You really think that having billions of megatons worth of energy dumped into a planet is not going to create noticable visual effects that we should be seeing, even hours after the fact? At the very least, that energy should be superheating the atmosphere (IE firestorms), if not melting the surface of the planet to a substantial depth

Hey, not my fault that you mentioned this about P.2. Converting it to neutrinos is really the best choice (in the absence of unknown technical difficulties of course), and honestly I wonder why they don't do it all the time.

As I recall, I mentioned that as a possibility. (And strictly speaking, they don't neccesarily have to use the interior of the planet as the SOLE heat sink - it could be an alterantive place to radiate excess energy, say in emergencies.)

Anyhow, aside from the fact there is going to be a finite "rate" at which this can be achieved, there is probably also the matter of generating neutrinos, ,as well as access to the technology (something the Rebels may not always have.)

Yes, I know it is mentioned in the SWT. But the ROTJ novelization is equally explicit that as the shield went down, the moon was in "unprotected space."

Yes, but it doesn't specify or even imply whether it was down permanantly, or whether it was temporarily knocked out (presumably by the fact that the Rebels took out the power generator as well as the projector.) It is possible to "knock down" a shield and have it be restored after time has passed (either by repairs, or redundancy, or whatnot.)

And I'm pretty sure the novelization is still just a bit higher on the hierarchy.

No such distinction occurs that I'm aware of. They're just as canonical as any secondary source.

I won't mind the planetary shield idea if these two quite contradicting statements can be bent appropriately (one of the reasons I preferred the repulsor to your shield).

Look above. Assuming redundancy on the part of the generator (both in terms of multiple generators and multiple power sources) is quite logical (for one thing, they would need the ability to repair the shield or replace components without deactivating it in the event of an attack, so having "back ups" to rely on would be practical. Besides which, we know that there are examples of shield redundancy, even in full planetary shielding, such as Coruscant's shields in Wedge's Gamble.) At the very least, its far less of an assumption than anything in your theory (and is far less ridiculous for that matter.)

[Connor MacLeod]

No, they are obeying his order for free decision. But they use the Rebel's testimony as input for the decision and his God status gave credibility to their arguments. That he said they are free to choose is what differentiates "control" or "coerce" or "threaten" with "manipulate".

Wow, more pointless semantical nitpicking in place of actual evidence to back up your assertion.

Suppose the guy that you looked up to all your life expalined his latest plight asked you for your help, but said you didn't have to, that you are free to decide. Are you going to tell me that you did not give additional credibility to his words due to his mere status, that you were no more likely to help him than Stranger X saying the same things? His special status was not lost just bcause he said "you are free to decide", and thus the special effect is not lost.

Wow, more pointless semantical nitpicking in place of actual evidence to back up your assertion.

That's the true significance. The "You are free to choose" is just window dressing so no one feels like they are being coerced.

In other words, that was just a long-winded response to saying "I have no evidence to back up my claim, but I'll bullshit like mad to make it seem like I do!" Again, Concession accepted.