Rogue One Death Star suspicion

I have a question that's still kind of bugging me.

Vader made it clear there was suspicion about Galen somehow compromising the Death Star. This suspicion should have been all but confirmed after the rebel actions on Scarif, so why would the Empire still happily use it and station some of their most experienced personnel on it?

Am I missing something, or am I looking too deep into it?

 

Arrogance.

 

Remember the Death Star conference in ANH? General Taggi put the issue on the table during the conference:

And what of the Rebellion? If the
Rebels have obtained a complete
technical readout of this station,
it is possible, however unlikely,
that they might find a weakness and
exploit it.

Admiral Motti: Any attack made by the Rebels against
this station would be a useless
gesture, no matter what technical
data they've obtained. This station
is now the ultimate power in the
universe. I suggest we use it!

Later both Tarkin and Vader had the opportunity to secure the plans by not allowing the Princess and her rescuers to escape.

But no, they were so eager finding the Rebel base, that safety concerns for the Death Star and its personnel took the proverbial backseat.

 

Well, they didn't know there was a major flaw!

 

This story makes almost no sense. Jyn and her father were both dead by the time the Rebels had the plan. No one had ever described the exact nature of the flaw. This means it was obvious enough that merely knowing there was flaw to search for was enough of a hint to independently discover not only what it was, but how to exploit it. The Imperials were similarly aware of the flaw, starting with their suspicions about Erso, and then confirmed by the Rebel's ability to pinpoint the exact location of the plans and huge sacrifice to obtain them.

So from the same starting point, how come the Imperials couldn't run the same analysis the Rebels did, except faster seeing as how they had the actual Death Star? And if they identified the flaw, why was there no special defense for it, no fix of the problem, or most reasonably of all a combination of both? The entire premise is ridiculous and this isn't at all addressed in Tagge's hypothetical.

 

Cuz The Force, that's why.

 

Arrogance. That's villains in a nutshell.

 

The arrogance of writers thinking we wouldn't notice a plot hole that resulted from trying to back-fill a story several decades later with overly-complicated new details?

 

Nope.

Rebels already knew what needed to happen to which specific part of the Death Star. They just needed to figure out the delivery mission.

The Imperials just knew that Galen Erso (and perhaps others) warned them of the Death Star and where to get the plans.

So essentially exactly what they knew in ANH before R1 came out for the Imperials, but the Rebels essentially know the Ford Pinto's fuel tank is compromised. Now they just need to figure out how to get the banana in the exhaust.

 

I think that they thought any attack would be a "useless gesture", as seen in this scene. On a side note, I cannot get over how perfectly Rogue One connects to Episode IV!!! It is GLORIOUS.

 

How did the Rebels "know" what needed to be done? Galen Erso knew, and he was shot dead at a research facility. His daughter knew, and was blown up by the Death Star. There weren't any more people.

 

After Eadu, Jyn and crew went back to Yavin 4 and shared the information before heading to Scariff. They only thing they got at Scariff were the plans. They already had Galen's hologram message memorized.

 

They said that there was a way to destroy the station. If that's all the more information it took, the Rebels didn't really need the plans in the first place, and the whole climax was pointless. Someone could have just told them verbally it was possible to destroy.

 

Again. No.

Galen's Hologram:
Saw. The reactor module, that's the key.
That's the place I've laid my trap.
It's well hidden and unstable.
One blast to any part of it will destroy the entire station.
You'll need the plans. The structural plans for the Death Star, to find the reactor.
I know there's a complete engineering archive in the data vault at the Citadel Tower on Scarif.
Any pressurized explosion to the reactor module will set off a chain reaction that will destroy the entire station.

 

But what did Jyn Erso actually repeat of that? That there's a way to destroy the whole station because her Dad sabotaged it. She literally saw the hologram one time in her entire life while weeping profusely and while a giant explosion was starting up outside. The idea that the whole thing was committed to memory, verbatim, is absurd. Besides the fact that we saw them report to the Alliance in not nearly so much detail, so your hypothetical is already demonstrably counter-factual.

 

She probably said

"One blast to the reactor module and the whole system goes down."
That's how she said it,
"The whole system goes down!"

 

This is absolutely absurd. The film audience enters the Alliance debate mid-stream, as is made clear by where the conversation is. So the obvious implication is that Jyn has already described the rationale for going to Scarif and getting the plans - which is to figure out how to hit the reactor module. So:

Rogue One: Jyn and the Rogue One crew told the Alliance that the reactor module was compromised by Galen, and that they needed the Death Star plans to find a way in to destroy the reactor module.

A New Hope: The Death Star plans revealed that a particular exhaust port offered a direct line to the reactor module.

It makes perfect sense. There is no plot hole. Case closed.

 

Right, all the Imperials figured out was that there was a "security breach", Galen turned out to be involved, and a pilot defected. It didn't even occur to them that the Rebels were on Scarif to steal the plans until Jyn and Cassian were already halfway through the process, in the tower, of stealing the plans.

 

Yes, but that's terrible logic. Because, you see, the Rebels did go to Scarif and steal the plans. They knew Galen's loyalties were suspect, and the calls all his previous work into question. You're talking about an organization that has repeatedly responded with extreme prejudice and suspicion to the slightest intimation of disloyalty. It would be inconsistent with this previous characterization for them to just shrug it all off and assume that Galen only had a single disloyal act in his entire tenure.

 

I don't see any terrible logic, nor a plot hole.

What exactly are you suggesting the Empire should do?
They have an extremely powerful weapon, and they know nothing about its weakness or that the rebels know about it, the only Imperial who knew about this issue got killed by the Death Star on Scarif. So even if they suspected that there was a problem, they had little reason for fear. The station could move and it could fire, so it was operational and the best weapon to deal with the rebels.

Hardly any time passes between the capture of the plans and the battle that destroys it. The entire time the Empire is on the heels of those who have stolen the plans. Even if they had known about the weakness, they couldn't possibly have fixed it in such a short time, if it was even possible at all. It's hardly likely that Galen Erso would opt for something that could easily be fixed. He chose an integral part of the station for a reason.

Even if they had recognized the problem, there still wouldn't be terrible logic at play. Tarkin was as arrogant as he could possibly be, and he had a plan to destroy much of the rebellion in one quick stroke. Using the Death Star to follow the rebels and blow up their secret base would be the best and quickest way to remove the threat. A regular assault could still lead to rebels getting away, something that is unlikely to happen when you blow up the entire planet (or in this case: moon) they happen to be on. He gambled on the fact that he had an extremely powerful weapon and the rebels had little time to find any issues it might have. That wasn't a bad bet from his point of view, because he couldn't know the rebels already knew where to look. Trying to take out the rebels before they can do anything with the plans is a whole lot of a better idea than sitting back and waiting until the rebels make a move.

 

The Rebels needed the plans. Leia says in ANH, "I just hope a weakness can be found." Which to me, means Jyn told them about a weakness, but didn't specify, and that no one in the Rebellion Heirarchy believed her claims. I don't remember if Jyn did explicitly specify what the exact flaw was, but they needed the plans to locate the exhaust port on the DS where the weakness had been placed. They couldn't just go bombarding random exhaust ports hoping to get the right one.

 

And lest we forget, even WITH the plans and time to scrutinise them and work out how to exploit the weakness, the Rebels only just barely succeeded ANYWAY. For all the fighting and the sacrifices of the Rogue One team, the Death Star defences very nearly won out anyway. Luke ''son of the Chosen One'' ''super powerful Jedi'' Skywalker pulled off a miracle shot at the last possible second... and even he only managed it because of Han's last minute rescue mission taking out Vader in the nick of time.

Yes the Imperials were arrogant but hardly misplaced in their confidence.

 

Yes... and Luke was only able to make the shot using the Force; the targeting computers were not cutting it.