Death Star, the letters home.(Updated 7/23)

[White Haven]

The other question becomes...what the hell do you need /trillions/ of infantrymen for, especially when anyone you put on the ground will have what might be described as the most potent artillery park of all time?

[Junghalli]

I'm with NecronLord and Trooper TK12746. If my son wrote to me telling how he was impressed with the destruction of a planet for nothing more than a test, I'd tell him don't bother coming home.

Well, the destruction of Hiroshima was probably considered something to write home about. And if you've read The Shiva Option I can bet a lot of guys were writing home about how great it was to watch heavily populated Arachnid planets being reduced to radioactive cinders with antimatter weaponry.
Of course, those were legitimate military targets, unlike Alderaan which was basically destroyed as a gesture.

[NecronLord]

The other question becomes...what the hell do you need /trillions/ of infantrymen for, especially when anyone you put on the ground will have what might be described as the most potent artillery park of all time?

Can you imagine how easy it is to deal with insurgency if you can put a man in every room of every house?

[Trooper TK12746]

I doubt the EMpire could possibly just shrug off the deaths of trillions of troopers. ANd Imperial recruiting would drop like a rock. As far as i could tell, the desruction of the DS didn't hurt he Imperial recruiting too much.

[Ford Prefect]

There is a book (Dog be damned I can't remember the name), the one where Luke goes on a wild goose chase for his mother. It states the number of people aboard. And also that a fair number were not military poeple.

And I don't see why the Death Star couldn't have trillions aboard. If there's 37 000 people aboard a Star Destroyer, and the Death Star masses millions of times that, it could conceivably hold a trillion people, which is around about the population of Coruscant.

[NecronLord]

I doubt the EMpire could possibly just shrug off the deaths of trillions of troopers. ANd Imperial recruiting would drop like a rock. As far as i could tell, the desruction of the DS didn't hurt he Imperial recruiting too much.

Forty million inhabited planets were in the Republic. One trillion death star passengers is an average of 25,000 recruits per planet.

Wouldn't even be noticed.

[Skelron]

The other question becomes...what the hell do you need /trillions/ of infantrymen for, especially when anyone you put on the ground will have what might be described as the most potent artillery park of all time?

Your looking at the Death Star wrong. It's NOT meant to be a great use of resources from a purely tactical point of view but a weapon of terror. Knowing that not only can that thing that has just arrived destroy your planet, but it carries enough ground forces to as NecronLord put it , 'Place a Stormtrooper in every room of every house.' It'll do exactly what is wanted, Stop rebels dead.

Planet rebels and leaves the Empire... Well look the Deathstar has appeared in system and wow that guy, you know the one who led the rebelion and was voted 'Best guy to live ever' has just been hung by a petrified Mob desperate to appear loyal.

THATS why the Deathstar is overpopulated, it ends all hope in an instant.

As for the fanfiction indeed a better approach would have been, something more akin to...

'I was both horrified at the thought of what we had done, yet filled with hope. Surely with the station's power demonstrated we will never again have to use the weapon. Peace and order will return, the price was high but worth paying.'

Still an interesting idea, and I hope you don't take the criticism's the wrong way. As for the Darklighter bits, come on guys, who cares if Biggs had 99 Million Siblings or none, these don't have to be that exact.

[Instant Sunrise]

Going to make some revisions to that first set, and then I will start on the next set of letters.

I'm changing Bigg's character to someone else, I'm just going through the databank trying to find a suitable character for that letter to be addressed to.

[Instant Sunrise]

New Set of letters.

Dear Lily,

I am writing you to let you know that I am safe, and I managed to escape the Death Star. I just can't belive what happened. I was running Hangar Control, launching fighters to counter some Rebel Fighters who had attempted to make a stand. And my vision started to blur, and I was beginning to black out again, like those time you told me where I would pass out and wake up "remembering" things that didn't happen yet. Instead of fainting, I saw the surface of the station, and a single enemy fighter fly down a trench with three TIE fighters in pursuit. A freighter we caught yesterday came out of nowhere, destroyed one, and the other one collided with the remaining fighter, launching it out of the trench. This rebel fighter continued to fly down until it fired a proton torpedo into an unsheilded exhaust port. What I saw next I refused to believe, I saw the station from a distance, as it dimmed in preparation to fire, the Death Star burst into a blaxing cloud of white-hot debris and vapor.

When I finally came to, I was on the floor and surrounded by the other officers. I told them what happened, and their faces turned white. They had just ran simulations on the attack pattern they were using, and it showed the possibility of that very thing happening. Bast told me to prep the hanger for an emergency departure, He had to go warn Tarkin of this threat.

I had the hangar ready for several shuttle departures, when an explosion rocked the hangar. I called for a damage report. A proton torpedo had just impacted the surface of the station, near one of the thermal exhaust vents. Just then I see General Tagge and Cheif Bast sprinting down the hallway to the hangar. The were yelling for everybody to evacuate, and to get to the nearest transport. I was going to stay behind and keep to my post, when I was yanked off, and thrown into the nearest shuttle. Our pilot quickly started the engines, without concern for things like checklists, and we hauled ass out of there. I was looking back, and I saw a fighter hit the surface, and then I realised that the Death Star was clear to fire. I watched as the lights on it dimmed as the power was diverted to the superlaser. And then a bright white light shot out from where it had been, moments later the ship was rocked by an explosion of enourmout magnitude, and where is Death Star had been, was now only an expanding cloud of debris.

We met up with Colenel Veers in another Shuttle, and Lord Vader in his TIE, which miraculously survived the battle. We alerted a distress signal, and were picked up by the Avenger's task group sometime later. Which is where I am now safely stationed.

Has Derek finally come to his senses about the Rebellion? It is still hard for me to stomach the idea that little Hobbie would be foolish enough to betray his family and galaxy to restore some lost, flawed, and outdated Republic. He's really let his foolishness get to him.

I have to cut this letter off so that I may get back to work. We're heading back to Coruscant, and I still need time to get over what all has happened.


Your Brother,
James Klivan.




To whoever finds this note:
I have finally discovered the true nature of this Empire. I had to sit and watch as that sick murdered Tarkin ordered my family dead. I am truly disgusted by what he has done. I hope he, and this damn station are destroyed. You will not find me following another order from Palpatine's damn regime. I can no longer bear to live in a world where pure evil reigns and can kill freely without a second thought. I saw as my home, my planet, my wife, and my Son, were all incinerated in an instant. There is no longer any hope left in the world. I take solace in the fact that I won't have to bear witness to any more atrocities by this tyrant. My only comfort id the vaccuum of space beyond the hangar.

Goodbye.


-Jeb Andor