Rogue One (Spoilers)

[Ender]

Gotta be honest, the consistent thing these past 14 years of LFL to try and put a happy face on fascism so they can sell more toys to kids has been deeply disturbing. Like I know it shouldn't be - there is way more messed up stuff out there to care about and work at fixing, which I do, but this has always bothered me on a visceral level.

“we can propose no technical demonstration likely to bring an end to the war; we see no acceptable alternative to direct military use.”
-Recommendations on the Immediate Use of Atomic Weapons, June 1945

“Dantooine is too remote to make an effective demonstration.”
-Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin.

The big issue is that George Lucas fucked things up with the Prequels, which are still canon.

The Separatist Supreme Commander [Grevious] is an abomination of nature, a fusion of flesh and droid- and his droid parts have more compassion than what remains of his alien flesh. This half-living creature is a slaughterer of billions. Whole planets have burned at his command.

The Clone Wars was earthshatteringly brutal, to the point that it made men like Wilhuff Tarkin appear the sane and rational choice to a galaxy shocked by three years of high-intensity galactic-scale warfare.

If you told a man in 1913 that within fifty years, humanity would be armed to the teeth with enough weapons to cause hundreds of millions of deaths and destroy known civilization in the space of a few hours after being sent on their mission(s), he'd have thought you insane.

Problem goes way beyond the prequels. Over the course of the 90s Thrawn went from "scary effective space nazi whose death is a relief" to "the good space nazi with his mini-empire of good space nazis, shame the good space nazi was murdered before he brought back the space reich"

People dressing up as stormtroopers, all the apologia for the empire in the aughts, then all the eu stuff promoting the clones and empire... There is a long long list of LFL taking a real clear cut thing of "these fuckers are unrelentingly evil and the worst of the worst" and making them good and cool in the name of bringing in more cash.

[Soontir C'boath]

The destruction of the shield gate relied on the incompetence of the commanding officers of the Imperators and how those two don't just annihilate the fleet from the start but Vader's lone Imperator does, broke my suspension of disbelief there. Again, Star Wars space battles are disappointing in their choreography. Their positioning also didn't exactly protect the gate from the rebel fleet either. And no, this is not like Endor where the Emperor ordered the fleet to hang off to show off the Death Star. This was an attack on what should be a heavily secured Imperial facility that needed to be quelled. The lack of turbolasers smashing those medium transports and Nebulon-Bs like flies as Vader did at the start just pissed me off instead.

Pretty much yeah. What the hell were the ISDs doing during this entire battle? Playing porn on the holonet? Why does it take Darth Vader showing up to start unfucking shit at a supposedly high security facility?

The films and TV shows do rather give the impression that their are maybe three competent people or so in the Empire.

Wink away, but if anything this cheapens the Rebellion. Leave that to the cartoons.

[Rogue 9]

The fact that a blind man who can shoot down a TIE fighter with a single shot from a portable blaster is a good indication that the Force is with him.

But does that mean he's "force sensitive?"

good question. I mean previously the space magic was something you were born with, and if you were a space muggle, nothing to be done.

Here the film really lays out the case that it is more like an abrahamic religion, where anyone with sufficient faith whose actions are consistent with the divine will ends up seeing their faith rewarded.

Its pretty clear this film treats the force differently, but who knows what the larger background will say

I'd say he pretty obviously is; if anyone could do Force bullshit without Force sensitivity (or *shudder* a high midichlorian count), more people would.

[The Romulan Republic]

Pretty much yeah. What the hell were the ISDs doing during this entire battle? Playing porn on the holonet? Why does it take Darth Vader showing up to start unfucking shit at a supposedly high security facility?

The films and TV shows do rather give the impression that their are maybe three competent people or so in the Empire.

Wink away, but if anything this cheapens the Rebellion. Leave that to the cartoons.

The point remains that this is standard right back to the OT. Whenever a main character is present, at least, 99% of Imperials are mediocre at best.

[Gandalf]

But does that mean he's "force sensitive?"

good question. I mean previously the space magic was something you were born with, and if you were a space muggle, nothing to be done.

Here the film really lays out the case that it is more like an abrahamic religion, where anyone with sufficient faith whose actions are consistent with the divine will ends up seeing their faith rewarded.

Its pretty clear this film treats the force differently, but who knows what the larger background will say

I'd say he pretty obviously is; if anyone could do Force bullshit without Force sensitivity (or *shudder* a high midichlorian count), more people would.

I thought that even space muggles* could be affected by the Force, but they just couldn't command it like the space wizard master race. The Force willed the shot to work, so that events could be set in motion allowing Anakin to kill the Emperor and restore balance.

*Am stealing without citation. Deal with it Ender.

[bilateralrope]

a 3D image will take more bandwidth then a 2D video though.

How much more ?

It also depends on what quality the image is. SW holograms are typically blue. Maybe a limit of the projector, maybe a limit of something else. Either way, you're not going to transmit data that the other end can't use.

Also while the transmition of the death star plans to the city ship was probably not FTL, seeing that Obi-wan's fighter had decent ranged FTL transmiter in AOTC, don't see why that antenna dish that was probably bigger then the whole of Obi-wan's fighter wouldn't have that capability.

Maybe because a radio dish and an FTL transmitter due to the differences in the underlying mechanics of how each works.

Also I don't see why the city ship wouldn't have FTL communication capabilities.

If a small shuttle has FTL comms than can handle voice communication, a city ship probably has FTL comms of some description. But does it have sufficient bandwidth ?

edit:my internet speed is 100mb/s but honestly I've not tried to transfer anything that was 1 or more TB so I wouldn't know.

This calculator gives a transfer time of 25 Hours, 37 Minutes and 54 Seconds. Assuming you can maintain that speed.

And a terabyte is if you're willing to say that the Death Star blueprints only take up 1,000-2,000 times that of those for an office building (using the 500MB-1GB figure atg gave earlier). I may be underestimating the total size by a few orders of magnitude.

[ray245]

The destruction of the shield gate relied on the incompetence of the commanding officers of the Imperators and how those two don't just annihilate the fleet from the start but Vader's lone Imperator does, broke my suspension of disbelief there. Again, Star Wars space battles are disappointing in their choreography. Their positioning also didn't exactly protect the gate from the rebel fleet either. And no, this is not like Endor where the Emperor ordered the fleet to hang off to show off the Death Star. This was an attack on what should be a heavily secured Imperial facility that needed to be quelled. The lack of turbolasers smashing those medium transports and Nebulon-Bs like flies as Vader did at the start just pissed me off instead.

Pretty much yeah. What the hell were the ISDs doing during this entire battle? Playing porn on the holonet? Why does it take Darth Vader showing up to start unfucking shit at a supposedly high security facility?

Apparently both ISD were disabled by Ion cannons. The second SD was shown to have some blue glowing effect on it, like it was also hit with an ion cannon attack.

[ray245]

Double post.

[Soontir C'boath]

The films and TV shows do rather give the impression that their are maybe three competent people or so in the Empire.

Wink away, but if anything this cheapens the Rebellion. Leave that to the cartoons.

The point remains that this is standard right back to the OT. Whenever a main character is present, at least, 99% of Imperials are mediocre at best.

As I recall, the stormtroopers on Scarif were kicking the rebels arse and they were much closer to Jyn and Cassieon.... The problem was up above and I already wrote an addendum to it anyway.

As for the other movies, they can be explained as overconfidence or the force, or the force of clones coming in kicking ass like in the second episode. Or Ewoks and Chewie gaining control of an AT-ST to turn the tide of a slaughter, etc. I can go on.

Your sentiment gives a cheap view to the movies.

I mean let me be clear, war is hell and shit happens so I don't expect everything to go perfect, but at the end of the day, there's a Rebel fleet in front of you and you either get busy shooting or get busy dying.

[Soontir C'boath]

Was just wondering about the stormtrooper armor and if getting hit doesn't necessarily kill the person, but wounds or stuns them instead. There was the bit when Chirrut was using a trooper as a human shield and was shot several times screaming in pain.

[Rhadamantus]

a 3D image will take more bandwidth then a 2D video though.

How much more ?

It also depends on what quality the image is. SW holograms are typically blue. Maybe a limit of the projector, maybe a limit of something else. Either way, you're not going to transmit data that the other end can't use.

Also while the transmition of the death star plans to the city ship was probably not FTL, seeing that Obi-wan's fighter had decent ranged FTL transmiter in AOTC, don't see why that antenna dish that was probably bigger then the whole of Obi-wan's fighter wouldn't have that capability.

Maybe because a radio dish and an FTL transmitter due to the differences in the underlying mechanics of how each works.

Also I don't see why the city ship wouldn't have FTL communication capabilities.

If a small shuttle has FTL comms than can handle voice communication, a city ship probably has FTL comms of some description. But does it have sufficient bandwidth ?

edit:my internet speed is 100mb/s but honestly I've not tried to transfer anything that was 1 or more TB so I wouldn't know.

This calculator gives a transfer time of 25 Hours, 37 Minutes and 54 Seconds. Assuming you can maintain that speed.

And a terabyte is if you're willing to say that the Death Star blueprints only take up 1,000-2,000 times that of those for an office building (using the 500MB-1GB figure atg gave earlier). I may be underestimating the total size by a few orders of magnitude.

If it has the same detail per area, and it's say a 25,000 sq ft office building, it'd be about 8.5 exabytes (10^18 bytes).

[The Romulan Republic]

Wink away, but if anything this cheapens the Rebellion. Leave that to the cartoons.

The point remains that this is standard right back to the OT. Whenever a main character is present, at least, 99% of Imperials are mediocre at best.

As I recall, the stormtroopers on Scarif were kicking the rebels arse and they were much closer to Jyn and Cassieon.... The problem was up above and I already wrote an addendum to it anyway.

As for the other movies, they can be explained as overconfidence or the force, or the force of clones coming in kicking ass like in the second episode. Or Ewoks and Chewie gaining control of an AT-ST to turn the tide of a slaughter, etc. I can go on.

Your sentiment gives a cheap view to the movies.

I mean let me be clear, war is hell and shit happens so I don't expect everything to go perfect, but at the end of the day, there's a Rebel fleet in front of you and you either get busy shooting or get busy dying.

I'm just pointing out that this is the way it is, and has always been, in Star Wars, not saying that this is the best possible way it could be done. I don't know why you seem to feel that this is some offence on my part.

[Soontir C'boath]

Well, it's because I rather an explanation than a decree by yours truly on how that is so.

And again it's because that view cheapens the movies. It means they haven't been winning because of their own actions or favor. For instance, at least Chirrutt not getting hit by blaster fire is explained away by the force that he is presumably connecting with, not because the stormtroopers which have been gunning down other rebels are bad shots as people always joke about them.

[The Romulan Republic]

Oh, I'm sure one can contrive numerous explanations for it. But it would be hard to change it radically without feeling, well, jarring. The Empire has always been this way, and so if we suddenly had one film where they were hyper-competent, it would feel a little out of place, I think.

Now, I do like that TFA had the First Order rank and file seem a bit more capable at times (their commanders, not so much). And because its established that way from the start, it doesn't feel really jarring.

I hope Episode VIII doesn't screw that up.

[Soontir C'boath]

I am not asking for a hyper-competent enemy as the examples I gave shows. Do you like to slip and slide away when you can't offer anything to back your point up? You were infinitely better off saying it was sarcasm from the start.

[The Romulan Republic]

I never claimed it was sarcasm.

Look, I tried to be civil, but you seem determined to pick a fight over my basically stating a fact you don't like. I have half a mind to just write you off as trolling right now, but if you want me to back up my point:

Fine. My point is that incompetent Imperials are standard for Star Wars canon, at least in the films and television. For evidence, I submit Tarkin's refusal to launch fighters to defend the first Death Star despite being warned that the attack posed a threat, Ozzel's blunder at Hoth, the poor marksmanship of any stormtrooper in the presence of a main character, the entire ground battle of Endor, and half of season one of Rebels.

[Soontir C'boath]

I never claimed it was sarcasm.

I'm saying it was better off for you to leave it at the wink.

Look, I tried to be civil,

Fuck you, no you weren't.

but you seem determined to pick a fight over my basically stating a fact you don't like. I have half a mind to just write you off as trolling right now, but if you want me to back up my point:

You're on SDN, just saying something without backing it up is not what you do here, dumbass.

Fine. My point is that incompetent Imperials are standard for Star Wars canon, at least in the films and television. For evidence, I submit Tarkin's refusal to launch fighters to defend the first Death Star despite being warned that the attack posed a threat,

There were fighters launched and they were cleaning them up rather nicely. Or did you just remember Vader and his two escorts who were in the trench taking Gold and Red Leader out? If Luke wasn't there, it wouldn't have been an issue. It was the Force that brought about that victory.

Ozzel's blunder at Hoth,

In which they re-planned accordingly with Veers completing his objective. The tractor beam not being ready for the Falcon at the end of the movie would probably be more appropriate for your point.

the poor marksmanship of any stormtrooper in the presence of a main character,

Now you're trolling.

the entire ground battle of Endor, and half of season one of Rebels.

This same battle where they were slaughtering Rebels and Ewoks left and right...

[Soontir C'boath]

Again, I don't expect the empire to be "hyper-competent" as you put it. If anything that's the opposite of what I'm asking for. I'll put it in this funny way.

I expect the incompetence to be reasonably believable to give the protagonists a chance to win.

The only thing that comes to mind that possibly breaks this is TPM when Anakin manages to enter the hanger bay and the generators or whatever they were, were right there for him to conveniently destroy.

Edit: In regards to Yavin, there were two X-Wings and a Y-Wing left out of 30 fighters at the end of the battle.

[The Romulan Republic]

Hyper-competent may have been a slight exaggeration, but its not exactly a radical position that the Empire made numerous blunders throughout the OT.

I'm saying it was better off for you to leave it at the wink.

In other words, I should not have bothered to respond to your post.

Now who has a problem with backing up their points?

Fuck you, no you weren't.

Not that either of us is under any obligation to be civil on this board, but where was I anything other than polite until you started making accusations of dishonesty and insulting me?

I don't know what stick you've got up your ass here, but the impression you're giving is someone who's going out of their way to pick a fight with me due for reasons that have nothing to do with this topic.

You're on SDN, just saying something without backing it up is not what you do here, dumbass.

And I backed it up, despite the fact that doing so is needless for anyone who's actually watched the films and you have made it clear that you're more interested in sniping at me than having a real debate.

There were fighters launched and they were cleaning them up rather nicely. Or did you just remember Vader and his two escorts who were in the trench taking Gold and Red Leader out? If Luke wasn't there, it wouldn't have been an issue. It was the Force that brought about that victory.

Yes, Vader launched a small number of fighters, since he's one of those three or so competent people that I referred to.

In which they re-planned accordingly with Veers completing his objective. The tractor beam not being ready for the Falcon at the end of the movie would probably be more appropriate for your point.

Well, hey, if you want to give me arguments to back up my point.

And yeah, Veers is on the short list of competents as well.

Now you're trolling.

Citing examples from the highest level of canon to prove my point after you demanded that I do so is trolling now?

This same battle where they were slaughtering Rebels and Ewoks left and right...

And still lost to a handful of people who were their prisoners moments before, and a stone age force.

Special points for the officer who opened the bunker and sent his men into a trap, apparently without bothering to get Han's ID.

In any case, this is veering off-topic. If you really want to debate the topic of the Empire's overall competency or lack thereof (as opposed to Rogue One specifically), might I suggest creating a new thread?

[Soontir C'boath]

Hyper-competent may have been a slight exaggeration, but its not exactly a radical position that the Empire made numerous blunders throughout the OT.

I'm saying it was better off for you to leave it at the wink.

In other words, I should not have bothered to respond to your post.

Now who has a problem with backing up their points?

You kept responding by just repeating your claim.

Fuck you, no you weren't.

Not that either of us is under any obligation to be civil on this board, but where was I anything other than polite until you started making accusations of dishonesty and insulting me?

I don't know what stick you've got up your ass here, but the impression you're giving is someone who's going out of their way to pick a fight with me due for reasons that have nothing to do with this topic.

You're imagining things. Take your persecution complex elsewhere.

You're on SDN, just saying something without backing it up is not what you do here, dumbass.

And I backed it up, despite the fact that doing so is needless for anyone who's actually watched the films and you have made it clear that you're more interested in sniping at me than having a real debate.

You repeating your claim over and over again at first wasn't a real debate to be had by you.

There were fighters launched and they were cleaning them up rather nicely. Or did you just remember Vader and his two escorts who were in the trench taking Gold and Red Leader out? If Luke wasn't there, it wouldn't have been an issue. It was the Force that brought about that victory.

Yes, Vader launched a small number of fighters, since he's one of those three or so competent people that I referred to.

You' seem to be misremembering the order of what happened in the movie. Vader and his TIEs were well on their way of cleaning up the rebel fighters when the urgency for Tarkin to leave was called. If Vader had finished Luke off, we wouldn't be where we are now. The end total was two X-Wings, a Y-Wing, and the Falcon. Clearly.

Now you're trolling.

Citing examples from the highest level of canon to prove my point after you demanded that I do so is trolling now?

The force is strong with this one.

This same battle where they were slaughtering Rebels and Ewoks left and right...

And still lost to a handful of people who were their prisoners moments before, and a stone age force.

Special points for the officer who opened the bunker and sent his men into a trap, apparently without bothering to get Han's ID.

In any case, this is veering off-topic. If you really want to debate the topic of the Empire's overall competency or lack thereof (as opposed to Rogue One specifically), might I suggest creating a new thread?

Well, it's clear why you feel this way if you're going to brush off what happened that turn the tide of the battle.

It seems rather it's you in the end who have higher expectations of the empire beyond what they should have.

[Ender]

a 3D image will take more bandwidth then a 2D video though.

How much more ?

It also depends on what quality the image is. SW holograms are typically blue. Maybe a limit of the projector, maybe a limit of something else. Either way, you're not going to transmit data that the other end can't use.

Also while the transmition of the death star plans to the city ship was probably not FTL, seeing that Obi-wan's fighter had decent ranged FTL transmiter in AOTC, don't see why that antenna dish that was probably bigger then the whole of Obi-wan's fighter wouldn't have that capability.

Maybe because a radio dish and an FTL transmitter due to the differences in the underlying mechanics of how each works.

Also I don't see why the city ship wouldn't have FTL communication capabilities.

If a small shuttle has FTL comms than can handle voice communication, a city ship probably has FTL comms of some description. But does it have sufficient bandwidth ?

edit:my internet speed is 100mb/s but honestly I've not tried to transfer anything that was 1 or more TB so I wouldn't know.

This calculator gives a transfer time of 25 Hours, 37 Minutes and 54 Seconds. Assuming you can maintain that speed.

And a terabyte is if you're willing to say that the Death Star blueprints only take up 1,000-2,000 times that of those for an office building (using the 500MB-1GB figure atg gave earlier). I may be underestimating the total size by a few orders of magnitude.

Mmmh, how much power does it take though?

Keep in mind that the Profundity was disabled as soon as the Devastator turned up on the scene so unlike the Executor in the asteroid field it's power is going to be limited

I know Charles Stross did some work on that a few years back in a blog post and came up with some BOTE numbers for how much power for a given amount of data per light year. But that was based on a tight beam laser, our hypothetical tachyon transmission would have the conversion factor in its power as well because

You'd need to figure out how many quanta are needed to transmit a bit, including error correction, then figure out your bit rate from your frequency and power, and then guess at attenuation to know how much power to push it a given distance

Oh and the rebels can't push it to a holonet node because the empire would just block it there, and you can't beam it to yavin because that gives away the base location (or at least tells them a probability cone for direction and distance from the implied attenuation) so where are you sending it.

Basically you are gonna push a ton of power into the community system to shout at an unknown someone. Or give it to a courier

And remember Tannenbaum's law

Plus you need to give it to Leia to courier over anyways as Kenobi downs have a holoc transmitter in his hovel, and you need to get word to the space wizard so he can hit that one in a million shot to blow the damn thing up (implied to be their plan)

[Imperial Overlord]

The fact that a blind man who can shoot down a TIE fighter with a single shot from a portable blaster is a good indication that the Force is with him.

But does that mean he's "force sensitive?"

good question. I mean previously the space magic was something you were born with, and if you were a space muggle, nothing to be done.

Here the film really lays out the case that it is more like an abrahamic religion, where anyone with sufficient faith whose actions are consistent with the divine will ends up seeing their faith rewarded.

Its pretty clear this film treats the force differently, but who knows what the larger background will say

That's a possibility. The prequels have a fair share of "will of the Force" stuff including Anakin's immaculate conception. Alternatively, Imwe is Force sensitive, but the training he's received isn't equal to that of a Jedi so his command is erratic in a similar manner to Luke's abilities before he was trained by Yoda.

[The Romulan Republic]

Effectiveness with the Force is highly dependent on mental/emotional state.

"Do or do not. Their is no try."

"I don't believe it."/"That is why you fail."

And, of course, focus is important (as we see on Dagobah), as is one's emotions (rage/fear/hate vs. calm).

And this plays into training, as well. Jedi are caught to be calm, detached, focussed. Sith are taught to channel their darker passions. Force training is perhaps as much spiritual/psychological as learning specific techniques.

[Lord Revan]

Effectiveness with the Force is highly dependent on mental/emotional state.

"Do or do not. Their is no try."

"I don't believe it."/"That is why you fail."

And, of course, focus is important (as we see on Dagobah), as is one's emotions (rage/fear/hate vs. calm).

And this plays into training, as well. Jedi are caught to be calm, detached, focussed. Sith are taught to channel their darker passions. Force training is perhaps as much spiritual/psychological as learning specific techniques.

That's kind of how I always saw it, less about learning specific "spells" and more about having right mindset to use the Force.

[Galvatron]

It's possible that the Guardians of the Whills are Force-sensitive, but not enough to qualify for Jedi training so those who desire to serve the Order have a chance to do so in other ways.