"The entire Starfleet in pitched battle couldn't stop u

[Rogue 9]

"The entire Starfleet in pitched battle couldn't stop us."

Admiral Motti made the statement in the title to Grand Moff Tarkin in the opening stages of convincing Tarkin to demand "equality to the Emperor" by using the Death Star as leverage in the ANH radio drama.

My question/reaction: What the hell? Couldn't the Imperial Starfleet just lay on the BDZ until nothing on the surface worked anymore? Sure, the casualties would be horrendous, but I seriously doubt that the sheer number of Star Destroyers involved wouldn't wear down the station eventually.

[DPDarkPrimus]

He was talking about the Federation Starfleet, obviously.

[Vympel]

"The entire Starfleet in pitched battle couldn't stop us."

Admiral Motti made the statement in the title to Grand Moff Tarkin in the opening stages of convincing Tarkin to demand "equality to the Emperor" by using the Death Star as leverage in the ANH radio drama.

My question/reaction: What the hell? Couldn't the Imperial Starfleet just lay on the BDZ until nothing on the surface worked anymore? Sure, the casualties would be horrendous, but I seriously doubt that the sheer number of Star Destroyers involved wouldn't wear down the station eventually.

First of all, Admiral Motti is already an arrogant ass. Second, the Death Star did have shields that only slow fighters could pass through. Third, what does he mean by "stop us"? If he means stop the DS from destroying a planet, he's certainly right, it'd be impossible to stop. Unless you're a Force-sensitive Rebel in an X-Wing.

[Rogue 9]

"The entire Starfleet in pitched battle couldn't stop us."

Admiral Motti made the statement in the title to Grand Moff Tarkin in the opening stages of convincing Tarkin to demand "equality to the Emperor" by using the Death Star as leverage in the ANH radio drama.

My question/reaction: What the hell? Couldn't the Imperial Starfleet just lay on the BDZ until nothing on the surface worked anymore? Sure, the casualties would be horrendous, but I seriously doubt that the sheer number of Star Destroyers involved wouldn't wear down the station eventually.

First of all, Admiral Motti is already an arrogant ass. Second, the Death Star did have shields that only slow fighters could pass through. Third, what does he mean by "stop us"? If he means stop the DS from destroying a planet, he's certainly right, it'd be impossible to stop. Unless you're a Force-sensitive Rebel in an X-Wing.

One, yeah, kind of hard to miss. Two, the entire Imperial Starfleet is a shitload and a half of firepower. Three, he didn't give a context beyond pitched battle, but it was pretty clear that he was insinuating that there was nothing the Emperor could do to prevent Tarkin from seizing supreme rank in the Empire as long as he had the Death Star. I presume this means he thinks the station could take on the Starfleet in pitched battle and emerge at least still functional, if not unscathed.

[HemlockGrey]

Could have been hyperbole? Exaggeration? I.E. "The US could take on the world and win!"

[Rogue 9]

If it was, it was extremely stupid hyperbole in light of just what he was suggesting. I admit that hyperbole in Motti's case is not unlikely, but it would still be extremely retarded, even for him, to suggest open defiance to the Emperor on the strength of a fabricated exaggeration of the Death Star's true power. If it was knowing hyperbole, and the station really would lose to the Starfleet, then Motti's scheme was doomed to fail and he had to know it.

[HemlockGrey]

Not really, the Death Star is still an immensely powerful coup weapon. Park it over Coruscant, for example, and start making demands.

EDIT: And, of course, any coup attempt or threats by senior Imperial fleet officers would also bring fleet assets under their personal command into play. The Death Star would merely be the centerpiece of their battle force.

I wouldn't take Motti's intent too literally as it's fairly clear he was simplying saying "We have all this power, let's use it!"

[Darth Wong]

Keep in mind that the Death Star had an enormous number of weapon emplacements and a central reactor capable of UNLIMITED POWER, so it can just keep dishing out the whoop-ass all day. It's unknown whether the entire Starfleet could defeat that, but the Death Star was designed to do battle with "a direct large-scale assault", and it would deal out horrific death and destruction to any large-scale attacker.

[Stuart Mackey]

"The entire Starfleet in pitched battle couldn't stop us."

Admiral Motti made the statement in the title to Grand Moff Tarkin in the opening stages of convincing Tarkin to demand "equality to the Emperor" by using the Death Star as leverage in the ANH radio drama.

My question/reaction: What the hell? Couldn't the Imperial Starfleet just lay on the BDZ until nothing on the surface worked anymore? Sure, the casualties would be horrendous, but I seriously doubt that the sheer number of Star Destroyers involved wouldn't wear down the station eventually.

Perhaps the power of the DS is why Vader was aboard? to ensure the reliability of the DS high command.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

My question/reaction: What the hell? Couldn't the Imperial Starfleet just lay on the BDZ until nothing on the surface worked anymore? Sure, the casualties would be horrendous, but I seriously doubt that the sheer number of Star Destroyers involved wouldn't wear down the station eventually.

The Death Star is incredibly well-shielded. Note that it survived blowing up Alderaan without significant damage from Aldie's frag pattern, a feat which implied its shields could take energy comparable to the minimum requirement of blowing up a planet. And that's the lower limit - note we have never actually seen the upper limit or even an approximation of it in its sadly short operational lifespan.

Think: 2E32 vs 1E25 range for a ISD. Think 10 million ISDs equivalent. Even Marina O' Leary doesn't think the Empire has 10 million ISDs.

The shield could be penetrated by fighters, but when the Death Star is fully operational, it will have its own strong fighter screen and in any case, the amount of damage even Star Wars fighters can do to a moon is limited. It helps that the Imperial Starfighter Corps' has a low proportion of craft armed with protorps - and those being slower craft that can be brought down by TIEs with relative ease. Many people have noted that while X-Wings can cause some superficial damage to the surface, TIE fighters don't seem to do so, further improving his odds.

Even if it is hyperbole, he isn't that far off.

[Rogue 9]

"The entire Starfleet in pitched battle couldn't stop us."

Admiral Motti made the statement in the title to Grand Moff Tarkin in the opening stages of convincing Tarkin to demand "equality to the Emperor" by using the Death Star as leverage in the ANH radio drama.

My question/reaction: What the hell? Couldn't the Imperial Starfleet just lay on the BDZ until nothing on the surface worked anymore? Sure, the casualties would be horrendous, but I seriously doubt that the sheer number of Star Destroyers involved wouldn't wear down the station eventually.

Perhaps the power of the DS is why Vader was aboard? to ensure the reliability of the DS high command.

Precisely; he came up in their discussion, but Motti thought Vader could be "dealt with." I think he was underestimating the Dark Lord of the Sith, but that's another matter entirely.

[Cykeisme]

How many Heavy Turbolaser batteries does the Death Star have on its surface? I'm assuming that if the superlaser wasn't drawing any power, the DS would have the ability to fire every single HTL it has at their maximum rate of fire.

Also, if the entire Imperial Starfleet was arrayed near the Death Star, firing its superlaser into the fleet could potentially cause the destruction of multiple capships, even without accurately targeting any individual one.

Perhaps the Death Star can literally take on the entire Imperial Starfleet?

[Stuart Mackey]

"The entire Starfleet in pitched battle couldn't stop us."

Admiral Motti made the statement in the title to Grand Moff Tarkin in the opening stages of convincing Tarkin to demand "equality to the Emperor" by using the Death Star as leverage in the ANH radio drama.

My question/reaction: What the hell? Couldn't the Imperial Starfleet just lay on the BDZ until nothing on the surface worked anymore? Sure, the casualties would be horrendous, but I seriously doubt that the sheer number of Star Destroyers involved wouldn't wear down the station eventually.

Perhaps the power of the DS is why Vader was aboard? to ensure the reliability of the DS high command.

Precisely; he came up in their discussion, but Motti thought Vader could be "dealt with." I think he was underestimating the Dark Lord of the Sith, but that's another matter entirely.

Well, Vader did test their faith..and found them wanting . But given Palpys abilities with precognition, I would say they were being foolish in the extreme.

[Mr Bean]

Precisely; he came up in their discussion, but Motti thought Vader could be "dealt with." I think he was underestimating the Dark Lord of the Sith, but that's another matter entirely.

Several hundred pounds of high explosives in his new quarters would do the trick but I don't think it was anything by arrogent posturing by Motti

[Chris OFarrell]

And I'm positive that there a dozens of complelty innocent looking chips in most of the key sections (overbridge, reactor core, superlaser, hyperdrive e.t.c) that he can and will activate remotly that will completly shut down this system (or worse).

The shear amount of technology the Death Star has on board will make finding these things just about impossible, even with a concerted effort.

Otherwise in a conventional assault, the best bet is to run like hell to the Maw (I find it VERY hard to belive the Emperor doesn't know about it) before Tarkin gets back there, grab the Death Star prototype and hurridly prepare it for an engagement. You need to send a fleet of interdictors in to pin the Death Star in place. Probably with a large chunk of the Imperial fleet riding escort, out of LOS of the Superlaser. Then have them all grab the Death Star with their tractor beams and hold it (its got good engines for sublight travel, the DS, but its hardly going to overpower a hundred thousand big capital ships) while the prototype comes in and blasts it.

Either that, or he just tells the Stormeis to take care of business.

*Stormtrooper on Death Star*
Palpitine: "Commander, initiate order sixty nine immediatly!"
Stormie: *blinks* "It will be done my Lord"

*Suddenly the music from Saturday Night Feaver starts blasting over the internal comms system and all the Stormies start doing Disco*

Palpitine: "Kriff, I meant Sixty eight, EIGHT!"

Stormie: "Ah, no probs" *shoots all the Senior officers, then everyone gets back to boggying on down*...

[The Grim Squeaker]

Maybe he meant simply holding Coruscant or Byss for ransom, that would limit the fleet's reaction time, or he could use a powered down shot to simply vaporize everything in a 100 mile radius of the emperor's palace to prevent any emergency shutdowns
Remember Tarkin doesnt believe in that hoky precognition nonsense

[Cykeisme]

Chris OFarrell brought up a solid point that somehow hadn't crossed our minds: the unswerving loyalty of clone/stormtroopers. Wonder how we'd missed that
Having a Sith Lord aboard doesn't hurt either.

So while the Death Star may damn well be unstoppable (to everything short of Force-sensitive farmboys), there's no way it could have been used against Palpatine.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Look at 40k for an example about how easy it is to trick drones.
Darth vader might actually approve, after choking the newly crowned supreme imperial Moff

[Cykeisme]

Look at 40k for an example about how easy it is to trick drones.

Huh?

[Lord Pounder]

Palpatine had the Fleets Star Destroyers hard wired to allow him, or his agents, access. I think it's fair assumption that Palps didn't let someone else have his new weapon without ensureing some kind of remote access or self destruct.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Space marines, have their captain tell them that the Emperor is false and theyll be growing extra arms like nobodys business

[NecronLord]

Stormtroopers don't work like that. Their loyalty is to the Empire, not their leaders. In the event of a Tarkin coup, they'd probably mount an assault on the DS overbridge and kill everyone.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Didnt one of the first Empire stories have a legion of stormtroopers programming altered by a few clauses?
Tarkin could have done it considering how powerful he was compared to the ring in the comic.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

Palpatine had the Fleets Star Destroyers hard wired to allow him, or his agents, access. I think it's fair assumption that Palps didn't let someone else have his new weapon without ensureing some kind of remote access or self destruct.

As I understand the concept in TTT was free access. As of the Star Destroyers, you still couldn't take full control of the ship, though you could look at records freely. The WD-style MCPs seem unique that one can remote control the ship all the way to its death.

At least that was for Emperor's Hands. Perhaps there is another backcode somewhere Mara doesn't know that would actually allow her to take full command of the Chimaera and vent Thrawn's bridge and quarters to space.

The stormtroopers have their loyalty to the Empire, true. But the DS stormies they seem to be under the operational control of Tarkin, especially if Vader had an "accident". Which means unless they manage to achieve a secret link direct to the Emperor or High Command, Tarkin would find it relatively easy to compartmentalize information and fool them into passivity.

Besides, he does have his own set of handpicked Death Star Troopers, which if you believe RPG stats, are superior to the average stormtrooper. These people are probably loyal to Tarkin, who handpicked them and trained them to his own standards. With proper planning, that might be enough to allow him to win over the stormtrooper contingent on board.

[spideycw]

Yes but in that comic Palpatine knew of the plot thanks to his precog abilities.