SWTC Update: Saxton's rational; ROTS "Death Star"

The Original Nex · Post by **The Original Nex** » 2005-04-12 06:33pm

http://theforce.net/swtc/ds/ruction.html#cgw

Apparently Curtis is of the mind that the battle station in ROTS is not the actual Death Star as seen in ANH. He goes into greater detail in the reading.

Firefox · Post by **Firefox** » 2005-04-12 06:38pm

What explains Tyranus taking the plans with him to Sidious? Could it have been to allow lead time to reverse-engineer the design, or to show his master what they were building?

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2005-04-12 06:55pm

Why would they need to reverse-engineer what they already have? Plus he's got the plans right there.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2005-04-12 06:59pm

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:Why would they need to reverse-engineer what they already have? Plus he's got the plans right there.

That doesn't necessarily mean that they have the sort of huge-scale industrial facilities for precision parts that they would need in order to construct their own death star. Even if they had all the technology required to do something like that, giganto-projects like this one would require a huge engineering effort. Hell, it's difficult enough to design and build new cars even though we obviously have plenty of technology for designing and building motor-vehicles.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2005-04-12 07:02pm

I see.

Tribun · Post by **Tribun** » 2005-04-12 07:10pm

Remember that the disk with the plans was already three years old, and most likely not even complete. To take that thing apart to get the missing data was the best thing to do.

Post by **Vympel** » 2005-04-12 07:31pm

I don't have the novel with my right now, but I think the novel talks about them watching the 'construction' of something. Anyway, is there a problem with the RotS Death Star being the same one as in ANH? I don't really think there is- sure, one took a lot longer to build than the other, but that can be explained as having to be built in secret before the dissolution of the Imperial Senate.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2005-04-12 07:43pm

Meh; that's many orders of magnitude slower than the DS2, which remember was MUCH larger than the DS1. It doesn't help the EU problems either.

Imperator Galacticus · Post by **Imperator Galacticus** » 2005-04-12 07:49pm

Also, the Republic (and hence the Empire) just got done fighting a major civil war that devastated almost the entire galaxy. Logically the Imperial military would ask the Emperor to rebuild the galaxy's infrastructure first before venturing ahead with something as time and resource-consuming as a Death Star.

Galvatron · Post by **Galvatron** » 2005-04-12 07:50pm

Vympel wrote:I don't have the novel with my right now, but I think the novel talks about them watching the 'construction' of something. Anyway, is there a problem with the RotS Death Star being the same one as in ANH? I don't really think there is- sure, one took a lot longer to build than the other, but that can be explained as having to be built in secret before the dissolution of the Imperial Senate.

Not just built in secret, but funneled money into its construction without the Senate finding out. If the Senate had oversight of military spending, I can see why this would have been such a gradual process relative to the DS2's rapid, balls-out construction.

Chris OFarrell · Post by **Chris OFarrell** » 2005-04-12 08:26pm

Well the DS2 WAS in fact noticed quite quickly by the Bothen Spynet. Its commented in SOTE that the Empire had diverted "huge" amounts of resources, manpower and cash to some secret project that everyone was trying to figure out. Clearly the Emperor wasn't trying for the subtle secret approach insofar as hidng the raw materials, even if the construction site itself was guarded.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2005-04-12 08:32pm

Chris OFarrell wrote:Well the DS2 WAS in fact noticed quite quickly by the Bothen Spynet. Its commented in SOTE that the Empire had diverted "huge" amounts of resources, manpower and cash to some secret project that everyone was trying to figure out. Clearly the Emperor wasn't trying for the subtle secret approach insofar as hidng the raw materials, even if the construction site itself was guarded.

I don't remember that shit at all. All I remember is that the Spynet recieved word of some project - and that was an intentionally dropped trick by Palpatine and Xizor to lead them to the Suprosa, which would eventually lead the to the DS2 and destruction.

Chris OFarrell · Post by **Chris OFarrell** » 2005-04-12 08:58pm

Yeah. For SOME reason whenever someone brings up SOTE and waves it around yelling about how it shows the DS2's production time, they quietly walk past THAT part of the book and pretend it doesn't exist.

SOTE pp 162

"The Empire has embarked on a new military project," Melan began. "We do not yet know what or where the project is, but we do know it is vast - the Emperor has diverted huge amounts of money, material and men for this secret enterprise".

Post by **Vympel** » 2005-04-12 09:03pm

I've never read SotE. The opening crawl of RotJ puts paid to the idea that the Death Star II was built concurrent with the first easily, since it says the Empire had "begun" construction of a new station. That places it at the very longest immediately after the first was destroyed.

Chris OFarrell · Post by **Chris OFarrell** » 2005-04-12 09:12pm

Vympel wrote:I've never read SotE. The opening crawl of RotJ puts paid to the idea that the Death Star II was built concurrent with the first easily, since it says the Empire had "begun" construction of a new station. That places it at the very longest immediately after the first was destroyed.

SOTE moves it up a little to around a 6 month time period. Though I've never been entirely sure. That was just the time when the Allience heard about it and when XTS was hired to move some stuff. The dialouge makes it clear the 'construction project' as Vader and the Emperor refer to it had been going on for some time before the book.

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2005-04-12 09:18pm

Chris OFarrell wrote:Well the DS2 WAS in fact noticed quite quickly by the Bothen Spynet. Its commented in SOTE that the Empire had diverted "huge" amounts of resources, manpower and cash to some secret project that everyone was trying to figure out. Clearly the Emperor wasn't trying for the subtle secret approach insofar as hidng the raw materials, even if the construction site itself was guarded.

Excuse me if I'm off-topic, but.. if the Bothan Spynet is known to be one of the best intelligence apparatus in the galaxy, and Bothans themselves as famous for having excellent spies.. why would you EVER hire a bothan for ANY job?

Chris OFarrell · Post by **Chris OFarrell** » 2005-04-12 09:36pm

...I don't understand. Your saying because they are good and known to be good, why would you hire them????

Grandmaster Jogurt · Post by **Grandmaster Jogurt** » 2005-04-12 09:43pm

Chris OFarrell wrote:...I don't understand. Your saying because they are good and known to be good, why would you hire them????

Probably as in "If the race is well known to have great spies, wouldn't they automatically be under much more suspicion, making them more of a liability?"

That's what I got from it.

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2005-04-12 09:45pm

I think Nephyts is trying to say "How do you trust great spies that work freelance?"

Right?

YT300000 · Post by **YT300000** » 2005-04-12 09:57pm

Nephtys wrote:
Chris OFarrell wrote:Well the DS2 WAS in fact noticed quite quickly by the Bothen Spynet. Its commented in SOTE that the Empire had diverted "huge" amounts of resources, manpower and cash to some secret project that everyone was trying to figure out. Clearly the Emperor wasn't trying for the subtle secret approach insofar as hidng the raw materials, even if the construction site itself was guarded.
Excuse me if I'm off-topic, but.. if the Bothan Spynet is known to be one of the best intelligence apparatus in the galaxy, and Bothans themselves as famous for having excellent spies.. why would you EVER hire a bothan for ANY job?

MICE

Money, Ideology, Coersion and Ego. For Bothans, money is their ideology, and where their ego comes from. So, unless you're coercing them, in which case you'd better watch your ass, you just need to pay them enough. Afterall, repeat customers are important in their business.

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2005-04-13 01:12am

Grandmaster Jogurt wrote:
Chris OFarrell wrote:...I don't understand. Your saying because they are good and known to be good, why would you hire them????
Probably as in "If the race is well known to have great spies, wouldn't they automatically be under much more suspicion, making them more of a liability?"

That's what I got from it.

Yep! That's what I mean.

Grandmaster Jogurt · Post by **Grandmaster Jogurt** » 2005-04-13 01:30am

Nephtys wrote:Yep! That's what I mean.

I WIN!

The Bothans probably don't act as the infiltrator kind of spy, doing jobs like the Cylon agents in BSG. They probably stay away from any nosy eyes and observe from afar, collecting as much information as they can that way. So less infiltration, more covert sneakiness.

Just my opinion, though.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2005-04-13 02:22am

Secret seperatist technology? Great Weapon?

You know, that's actually a rather cool rationalisation.

Slartibartfast · Post by **Slartibartfast** » 2005-04-13 03:02am

Chris OFarrell wrote:Well the DS2 WAS in fact noticed quite quickly by the Bothen Spynet.

The Emperor feeding them that information himself might have had something to do with it.

Chris OFarrell · Post by **Chris OFarrell** » 2005-04-13 03:09am

Slartibartfast wrote:
Chris OFarrell wrote:Well the DS2 WAS in fact noticed quite quickly by the Bothen Spynet.
The Emperor feeding them that information himself might have had something to do with it.

Possibly... The Bothens DID appear to notice the resources movements on their own, I would guess from the context. Then they tried to slice the computer on Courscant. At a guess I would say that was when they came to the attention of the Emperor. Who then with Xizor came up with the computer plan.