CT A question that bugged me about ESB

In ESB the Falcon and later Luke arrive in orbit at Bespin and are greeted by Imperial forces not long there after who have been there all along. At the the end of the film we see Vader's ship in orbit so during that entire time what became of that ship? Luke did not detect the ship in orbit. Was it outside the solar system and used hyperspeed when Lord Vader called upon it? One minute not there, next it suddenly appears. Maybe they have advanced shields that prevent the Falcon and X-Wing from detecting the ship so Luke and co fly past and not notice.

 

Probably on the opposite side of the planet. Just like the imperial fleet did in ROTJ, hiding behind Endor.

Apparently in star wars tech sensors can't detect ships on the other side of a planet/moon.

 

There is also the comment in ESB after the SD loses the Falcon on their sensors that "no ship that small has a cloaking device. "

This implies that , at least some, larger ships do have the ability to cloak.. To me it would make sense that Vaders SD would be equipped with all available tech.

So they laid in wait cloaked until the trap was sprung.

 

I think Luke already knew the bad guys where there.... Since he was going there to confront Vader...

 

Of course i couldn't remember that but does that also mean that the Millennium Falcon and Slave 1 also have cloaking devices built into their ships. If this was the case entire fleets of ships icqfreak stated would also be invisible to each other.

It always felt to me that Luke and Han should have been able to detect a Star Destroyer in orbit around Bespin the only other possibility is that they had ships that had low tech and were flying around space with the equivalent of a compass to locate where they were going.

 

The Falcon doesn't have a cloaking device and neither does Slave I. Fett wasn't detected because Han was so confident that the Empire had no idea where he was, that he neglected to think about bounty hunters being employed to find him. So he never bothered to use the rear scanners and Fett kept a distance to avoid tripping them. The Executor wouldn't be detected from the other side, the same way the Alliance fleet had no clue that all the Star Destroyers had moved to the other side of the Endor moon and were lying in wait for them.

 

It's just that nobody knows how to properly read those instruments. They're just there because they're bright colors.

 

IMO - Vaders SD might have simply left the system after dropping he and his troops off then returned when needed but I tend to think it was cloacked

I suspect at the battle of Endor the Imperial Fleet was powered down to minimize its threshold for detection as well as being hidden then powered up once the rebels Jumped in from hyperspace.

Bounty Hunters prob have all kinds of tricks to help prevent detection during pursuit.

 

Since Cloud City is a commercial port, it would have been rather unusual for Luke not to find any traffic activity with the Executor very likely having been sent to the other side of Bespin and outside the range of his X-Wing scanners.

 

Slave 1 would've been parked on a landing platform away from the one the Falcon was directed to, powered down there would be nothing for the Falcon to detect. The same could be said of the shuttles and troop transports that brought Vader and his troops, but the Devastator couldn't power down.

Also how does a cloaking device work in a GFFA? Does it make a ship visibly invisible to the naked eye, or invisible to view cams? Or is it just that a cloaking device makes a ship invisible to sensors that detect a ship's power?

Could the Devastator actually land on Cloud City? Could a gas giant like Bespin interrupt sensors same as they do with the Mutara Nebula in Star Trek's TWOK?

 

Could have been a short hyperspace jump away. Hole plugged.

 

This - so that pretty much eliminates the need to understand why it may or may not have been detected by Luke. He knew he was walking into a trap.

As for the Han, Leia & company - the Imperials calculated that Bespin was the Falcon's target before they landed - we already know that they were using these sort of strategies - Remember Vader's: "calculate all possible destinations along their last known trajectory" onboard Executor. Vader merely landed after the tip off from Fett, and had his ship hide out system/behind the planet.

I always thought Vader's lines near the end of ESB - "Tell my star destroyer to prepare for my arrival" (by which he means Executor) indicated that it wasn't just looming over Bespin ready to pick him straight up. There were some logistics involved.

 

When Luke arrived on the planet he was not aware that Lord Vader knew he was there. He sneaked in and was going to surprise the Imperials. Leia called out that it was a trap and Luke immediately took cover. Perhaps he knew it was a trap from the start but still his ship could not detect any of the Imperial fighters in orbit. His vision was that of his friends in danger not the precise details of what that danger was or what he was coming up against for all he knew a fleet of Imperials was surrounding the system waiting to pounce.

 

...Or, he took cover because a stormtrooper was shooting at him.

 

DarthZ07 wrote

...Or, he took cover because a stormtrooper was shooting at him.

No, Boba Fett was shooting at him but already before that he moved very cautiously through the Cloud City hallway. I think it is very likely that upon his approach he got cleared for a certain landing platform, but probably wondered how easy he actually got a landing permit (perhaps the Bespin controller told him accidentally that his friends expected him...now, how could you be expected if they didn't know you were coming?)

The thing that will actually really continue to bug me is this: http://boards.theforce.net/threads/lukes-x-wing-pilot-helmet-continuity-error-in-rotj.50041197/

 

I do hope in the next Star Wars film we get to see how the tech operates on the ships. I feel it adds to the story having the Millennium Falcon or X-Wing's internal control systems looked at.

 

It would certainly help avoid the need for answers like "they used their sensors" or "the vessel was cloaked" - fleshing out this tech would be great fun.
It's sort of a bit too Star Trek-esque though, Star Wars never really deviates from the fantasy mould on screen.

All we get is namedropping - "cut in the auxillary!", "alluvial dampers" and the like, which are really easy to flesh out.

Don't know why I missed thisAnd of course they "monitor" Luke and allow him to land. The way that's framed implies they had ships on Bespin, so the Executor was definitely hidden. But the scope of the trap was irrelevant - Luke repeatedly demonstrated that he was going to charge in to it headlong, no matter what.

 

When you think about it it was pretty arrogant of Vader to risk trying to capture Luke alone when he could have just surrounded him with a full garrison or stormtroopers, or had Leia there and demand he surrender or they'll kill her. Having him frozen in the carbonite was overkill bigtime.

 

He wanted full control over Luke's fate - a few imperial troops might have shot him/maimed him by mistake - game over.
The carbonite was a "crude" but effective method of transporting him to the Emperor in stasis, whereupon he would be corrupted to the Dark Side. No chance of escaping in carbonite - it's the perfect form of imprisonment.

Don't forget that Vader too wanted the opportunity to sway Luke over to his own side, "to rule the galaxy as Father and Son". Which is arrogant, yes.

 

Vader wanted to test Luke's abilities and see what he had to offer, before freezing him. That's why he is surprised at how far Luke has progressed in his training when he's able to keep up with him and then Force leaps out of the pit.

VADER: "You have learned much, young one."

VADER: "Perhaps you are not as strong as the Emperor has thought. Impressive! Most impressive."

The carbonite was supposed to be an easy means of containing Luke, since he doesn't have the equipment used on Geonosis to hold him, nor ray shields as on the Invisible Hand. The latter might have been built into the Executor, but it would be more difficult to get Luke to come aboard that ship than it would be to land at Cloud City.

 

But that wasn't in the original, was it? Originally, after Luke's escape a seething Vader ordered them to "Fetch my shuttle."