Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

[Adam Reynolds]

That design is actually quite logical for something like this, in which the Empire is able to have a single chokepoint rather than having to raise and lower the entire shield to let ships through, which would be somewhat more vulnerable to Rebel infiltrators. Though it does contradict ROTJ in which the Empire is easily able to open channels in their shield over Endor.

[Reyvan]

I got the impression that they had to lower the entire shield, not a channel.

Depending on what happens with this movie the Empire might well have decided that its better to have a shield with no weak points, but has to be turned off to let anything through through, instead of a permanent opening like this one, which rebel fighters can get through. If you have a planetary shield with no weak points, then the enemy has only three options, a siege, bringing a fleet strong enough to break the shield, or sending a team of infiltrators to bring down the shield early. This setup allows a fourth option, which is bringing a fleet strong enough to defeat a defending fleet, and even if the defenders end up winning, ships could slip through and cause damage beneath the shield.

If they had one of these at Endor, rebel starfighters might have been able to get through and destroy the Death Star's shield. Instead the rebels had to send an infiltration team to take out the shield, and that nearly failed.

This here is probably part of the Imperial doctrine as not seeing starfighters as a threat, considering this is just a few days before ANH. Following the destruction of the Death Star the Empire probably re-evaluated, and while not switching over to a starfighter focus, decided to take measures that would reduce the effectiveness of rebel fighters, such as making it impossible for the rebels to conduct airstrikes beneath a shield.

[Batman]

I got the impression that they had to lower the entire shield, not a channel.
Depending on what happens with this movie the Empire might well have decided that its better to have a shield with no weak points, but has to be turned off to let anything through through, instead of a permanent opening like this one,

Um-how do you know this opening is permanent?

which rebel fighters can get through.

If you can't be arsed to monitor it, absolutely. I bet nobody pays any attention to what goes in and out of the Panama canal either.

and even if the defenders end up winning, ships could slip through and cause damage beneath the shield.

Again presupposes the opening is permanent and nobody can be arsed to watch it

If they had one of these at Endor, rebel starfighters might have been able to get through and destroy the Death Star's shield. Instead the rebels had to send an infiltration team to take out the shield, and that nearly failed.

Again presupposes the opening is permanent and unsupervised

[Iroscato]

Good to see the SDN MO of massively over-analysing Star Wars is alive and shows absolutely no signs of slowing down. In a world that seems to be going mad, it feels like a steadfast oasis

[Batman]

It's what we do

[applejack]

There's also an international TV spot with a scene of lots of TIE fighters.

[Adam Reynolds]

Good to see the SDN MO of massively over-analysing Star Wars is alive and shows absolutely no signs of slowing down. In a world that seems to be going mad, it feels like a steadfast oasis

Why else would we still do this?


Anyway:

Um-how do you know this opening is permanent?

Until we actually see the movie we have no idea, but it fits the fact that the Rebels are bothering to waste their fleet against a small space station. Why else would they spend much in the way of resources attacking it?

If you can't be arsed to monitor it, absolutely. I bet nobody pays any attention to what goes in and out of the Panama canal either.

Yes, but Rebel fighters are much faster than a ship traveling through the canal. It is hardly the same thing. Given the general superiority of Rebel fighters, it is not surprising that they are capable of pulling off something like this, which the Empire would probably learn from.

[Reyvan]

I got the impression that they had to lower the entire shield, not a channel.
Depending on what happens with this movie the Empire might well have decided that its better to have a shield with no weak points, but has to be turned off to let anything through through, instead of a permanent opening like this one,

Um-how do you know this opening is permanent?

which rebel fighters can get through.

If you can't be arsed to monitor it, absolutely. I bet nobody pays any attention to what goes in and out of the Panama canal either.

and even if the defenders end up winning, ships could slip through and cause damage beneath the shield.

Again presupposes the opening is permanent and nobody can be arsed to watch it

If they had one of these at Endor, rebel starfighters might have been able to get through and destroy the Death Star's shield. Instead the rebels had to send an infiltration team to take out the shield, and that nearly failed.

Again presupposes the opening is permanent and unsupervised

We don't know the opening is permanent, and won't know until the movie. Based on what we've seen so far though, we see rebel fighters charging through it, and considering we also see rebels fighters attacking targets on the planet, it seems that it wasn't able to close in time to stop them, if it can close at all. So for now, until we have the evidence of the movie, I'm just going based off the fact that it looks like a permanent opening, and the rebels are able to get through it. Also, if this isn't permanent, then you'd expect we'd see a lot more of them as having a small hole you can open in the shield at will is a lot better than having to lower the entire shield whenever you need a single ship to get through. So basically for now I'm assuming its permanent, as based on the 3 seconds of it we've seen, and based on what we know of planetary shields, thats what makes sense. Maybe that will change in a month.

Now, I'm not saying the rebels could sneak a bunch of X-Wings through the shield unnoticed, I'm saying that in the midst of a battle, the rebels can get a bunch of X-Wings through while the rest of their fleet engages the defenses, like, you know, we see in the trailer. We see a Star Destroyer right next to it, so evidently it is being monitored, and Rebel fighters are pouring through anyways.

As I see it, a planetary shield basically means you don't have to defend a planet with a fleet, or you just defend it with a small fleet, because the enemy can't just go through and hit the planet. Instead they either need to besiege it or batter it down, which gives you time to respond with a fleet that prevents that planet from falling. If you have one of these, and if these are permanent, then the enemy only needs to hit you with a strong enough fleet to overcome whatever you have defending that hole, instead of a fleet capable of dropping the shield. Depending on their objectives they might not even need a fleet that can beat the defending fleet, just one that's able to give them enough of a fight to let starfighters get past.

[Patroklos]

Summary: The existence of this contraption makes no sense operationally or technologically based on the universe it exists in. Yet again, the writers couldn't spend more than five minutes thinking about the implications of what the shoehorn in.

If its permanent its like leaving a gapping hole in a tanks glacis plate. Star fighters are the least of anyone's worries. I can just shoot continent shattering turbolaser bolts through it from hundreds of thousands of kilometers away. Hell, given the stupidity introduced in TFA with Han's jump through the frequency bullshit now I can just hyperspace through it without even having to worry about hitting a shield, I just have have to avoid the planetary surface. If I am an planet shattering R bomb I don't even have to worry about that.

[NecronLord]

Why are people saying the shiled hatch is unguarded or easily exploited? We see eight laser emplacements (at least) on the thing, and there is a star destroyer right next to it. I reccommend setting video playback to 25% speed and really looking at it. The hatch shoots one of the X-wings.

[Patroklos]

none of which help with any of the attacks I just mentioned.

The problem is its introducing a critical flaw into a defensive system for dubious benefit. This isn't an exhaust port critical to the operation of the device, and I can only think of one instance where its existence would have solved an existential problem (Coruscant, Trawn's asteroid blockade) The big thing about planetary shields is that for a strong one they are considered pretty much impenetrable without significant effort to counter them. Cumbersome sure, but they are 100% effective over their entire area. So much so that even small ones can ward off an Executor-class SD, and you need a Death Star to deal with a top of the line version on any manageable timeline. Imagine of Alderaan had a station like this. Instead of conceiving of a planetoid sized battle station considered the greatest weapon ever built in galactic history, all to deal with a planet of fucking pacifists, they could have just rolled up with a single Star Destroyer and fired through the hole while laughing at the ineffectual weapons fire defending this thing (from the representative example).

Now I am basing this on it being permanently open. As far as I can tell its always shown open. If it was usually not or easily closed then there should be no way for the X-wings to get through as you just flip a switch at the sign of trouble. Or if you have any competence at all you keep it closed and only open it after a lengthy security clearance and then only open it for the fraction of a second a SW vessel needs to transit through it (which is what was previously done for entire planetary shields). "Maybe they had an infiltrator on the station" you say to address that. Well, that can only happen because the station doesn't have an impenetrable planetary shield between it and the infiltrator requiring all the effort we see in ROTJ (shuttle, secret codes, etc) to perfrom the same attack on a shield without a needlessly inserted Achilles heel.

Its just the "Attack the Weak Spot" trope from video games applied to invent a literal plot hole to avoid coming up with anything imaginative. I don't care how inconvenient getting your amazon shipment through the shield is, forfeiting defacto invulnerability for what invariably will end up being something very important is not going to make sense no matter what the convenience is. Shit, this isn't even a Nivenesque shield that blocks sunlight and communications and heat.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... sWeakPoint

[eMeM]

Keep in mind there is some kind of a huge DS-related construction (or mining?) project going on on this planet, maybe it is open because of the constant stream of whatever the planet produces that is being sent into space, I think you can see one of those orange AT-ACT containers going through the "gate" in the trailer.

[Patroklos]

Cool. That at least make sense, but that should require a fraction of a second of shield drop not the gaping persistent hole we see. SW ships have figured out how to launch fighters in battle with the assumption they won't be getting instantly gutted by capital ship/fighter fire. Hell, they have figured out how to shoot through their shield without apparent risk of that allowing enemy fire through. They can open and close their shields with trivial ease.

If SW ships must plod along at a snails pace for some unknown reason when navigating the opening? In that scenario you just halt traffic. Or, they can just shut the shield regardless of who is passing through it at the time. That being a trivial loss compared to what eventually happens.

We have seen this mechanic once before. It was in the shittiest entry of the franchise. And was done by a kid. Who tried spinning. Lets not go back there.

[Reyvan]

The problem is if you have cargo moving on and on world frequently, then you need to drop that entire shield a lot. Each time the shield drops thats a chance for someone who you don't want to be getting on or off world to get through. The Death Star project is secret, you do NOT want anyone getting off the planet without permission, which would be possible if you had to keep dropping the shield whenever a freighter needed to enter or exit. With the hole, all traffic must move through it, its impossible for any ship to leave the planet without the Empires express permission.

If this hole existed on a shield around Coruscant or Alderaan, then it would be a problem for the reasons you outlined. This planet is not Coruscant or Alderaan though. This is a planet that is secret, which is running a secret project. Your main concern is not that some enemy fleet is going to arrive to take or bombard the planet, your chief concern is keeping the planet, and the Death Star project, secret. Which this shield is able to do better than the ordinary planetary shield.

[hunter5]

I just figured that thing was just a new type of orbital defense platform given we see TIES boil out of it and the guns.

[Soontir C'boath]

Not going to spoil myself by looking at the new trailer, but I would hope that when the structure is destroyed, the shield just closes off that area as well.

[NecronLord]

Now I am basing this on it being permanently open. As far as I can tell its always shown open. If it was usually not or easily closed then there should be no way for the X-wings to get through as you just flip a switch at the sign of trouble. Or if you have any competence at all you keep it closed and only open it after a lengthy security clearance and then only open it for the fraction of a second a SW vessel needs to transit through it (which is what was previously done for entire planetary shields). "Maybe they had an infiltrator on the station" you say to address that. Well, that can only happen because the station doesn't have an impenetrable planetary shield between it and the infiltrator requiring all the effort we see in ROTJ (shuttle, secret codes, etc) to perfrom the same attack on a shield without a needlessly inserted Achilles heel.

Its just the "Attack the Weak Spot" trope from video games applied to invent a literal plot hole to avoid coming up with anything imaginative. I don't care how inconvenient getting your amazon shipment through the shield is, forfeiting defacto invulnerability for what invariably will end up being something very important is not going to make sense no matter what the convenience is. Shit, this isn't even a Nivenesque shield that blocks sunlight and communications and heat.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... sWeakPoint

I am having trouble even conceiving of why you think the thing can't be closed. As for your amazon shipment, yeah sure.

If you were designing a castle, would it have no gatehouse?

[Borgholio]

Anybody consider that maybe the point of the rebel infiltration squad is to...you know...infiltrate the shield "gatehouse" to prevent them from closing the hole as they would likely do in an emergency?

[Mange]

There's also an international TV spot with a scene of lots of TIE fighters.

That's quite a massive amount of TIE-fighters. Makes the Imperial response during the Battle of Yavin look puny.

[Lord Revan]

well that because imperial reponse towards the rebel fighters at Yavin was puny. The imperials thought they were invincible and figured out the true danger of the rebel attack too late or not at all.

[DarthPooky]

This is cool and I think I herd is canon.


Love that new shot of that rebel solder on the platform on Yavin 4.

[Vympel]

This is cool and I think I herd is canon.

It would be nice if they just released it without that 360 shite. I want to see the new models for the ISD-1 without interference. Even from that video the attention to detail is impressive - they've even reproduced the ion cannon / three HTL arrangement from the original model.

[Galvatron]

I can't help but wonder if the sheer amount of film they shot will make it into a special extended edition so we can see more of the battle porn that they made it too gritty for the theatrical release.

[Sea Skimmer]

The problem with special editions is the DVD/blu-ray market is already imploding, and that's what was really driving that for a while. With so many new movies coming out it's going to be a long time before they could have good fiscal incentive to special editions as far as I can see. Devalues the brand and all that.

I'm just glad planetary shields are canon again, since the effect got removed from the SE edition of ANH. For a while it seemed very much like Lucas did that on purpose to make more Jedi hijinks possible, but now that's no more worry.

[Adam Reynolds]

The effect wasn't removed as much as it was cleaned up. I would still it that a shield flash.

Also, planetary shielding is in many ways allows Jedi and commando hijinks, as it allows them to infiltrate and sabotage the shields rather than having a fleet attack directly.