[NRW] "There'll be no-one to stop us this time."

I've often wondered what this line is referring to, and I don't think it's ever been established. It could easily be explained as some minor skirmish that happened in the Empire comics or elsewhere, but none of those happenings carry the same weight as Darth Vader's emphatic statement. Stop Darth Vader? Stop the Empire? That's big.

Anyway, maybe that Death Star we saw at the end of ROTS was destroyed, and they had to build another one. Pretty simple.

P.S. I realise this idea has probably been proposed before, but the retcon really has more to do with making some sense of that seemingly out of place line in ANH, which is what retcons are all about.

 

Thats probably the best basis for a retcon I've heard this week.

Maybe the new 'first' Death Star was sabotaged on its first mission. Could this be the work of our favourite drunken hermit? (since thanks to Jude Watson, it's obvious that he spends 20 years jaunting accross the galaxy, instead of watching Luke)

 

According to the Ultimate Vader Guide, Vader is actually referring to himself. I'm still waiting for my copy but I think I read here in the forums that the Guide stated he sabotaged the Death Star.

 

I guess I don't see any particular problem, or any need for a retcon here. I never interpreted the line as having anything to do with the Death Star specifically. I thought it was more a matter of the Death Star plans. To wit, Vader had been on the case with trying to retrieve the plans for a short time already... the Tantive IV had escaped once already, as I recall, and the Devestator had finally caught up with them. Then the plans were sent away with R2 and 3PO. I had supposed that what Vader meant was that now no one could prevent him from recovering the plans, after a couple of false starts. Of course, it turns out he was wrong and that the plans would continue to elude him, but that's another matter.

On another level, I got the impression that maybe he meant that by now the Empire was getting to the point where the Senate and the democratic process were no longer impediments to Palpatine & Co. doing whatever they felt like. For the past 19 years, they'd needed to at least pretend like the Senate had some small voice in determining the galaxy's destiny, and maybe the Empire couldn't run roughshod over anyone they liked. Now, with the Death Star operational and the Senate about to be dissolved, there were no further checks on the Emperor's (or Vader's) power.

Interesting question: do you suppose that Vader was privy to Palpatine's plans to dissolve the Senate? Seems like a reasonable possibility to me.

 

well, that was one interpretation.. the Death Star was sabotaged. i just supposed that Vader might have been behind it as he didn't like having to be subservient to Tarkin when dealing about the Death Star. there is no evidence that Vader was behind any sabotage events on the Death Star.


hmm.. was Vader privy to Palpatine's disbanding of the Senate? i bet he was... i'm sure he knew that eventually the senate would be removed, but perhaps didn't know the exact when, as he was off tracking down the stolen plans. perhaps the revelation that several senators were part of the rebellion would be the public 'last straw' to declare the senate disbanded.

 

Maybe the Death Star is like Babylon 5...every time they try to build one the fusion reactor blows, or terrorists destroy it, or a space-time rift opens and whisks it away, or...

 

I always thought Vader meant not only the Rebels trying to stop them but also the senators voting against various things he had planned.

 

I bet that even the senators knew that Palpatine was going to dissolve the Senate. I mean, face it: 1) For the past 22 years, Palpatine had gradually been increasing his power at the cost of the other branches of the Republic's/Empire's government. 2) By the time the Senate was dissolved, every other remaining branch of the Imperial government that had been a part of the Old Republic had been removed. 3) Most of the senators were probably Palpatine's lapdogs, anyways.

I'd say the writing was on the wall.

 

One of the recent Star Wars Insiders explained the ones they're referring to is,indeed, the Imperial Senate.

 

Cool, I like that explanation better than mine.

Now we just need a believable explanation as to why Palpatine had a Death Star for twenty years and did nothing with it.

 

Yes, someone wrote in to Pablo Hidalgo's column with this exact question, and he had an explanation was nearly a page long. Apparantly by the start of Episode 4, Palpatine's still carefully installing regional governors, so he couldn't disband the Senate yet. It had neccesary beauracracy.

Anyways, I thought they didn't finish the Death Star until Episode 4, when they tested it. It kept getting sabatoged. It's discussed in the Death Star recton thread.

 

Have a bad feeling the whole sabotage thing will rear it's ugly head in the continuity mess that EMPIRE AT WAR promises to be. Like, a premature Rebel attack on the DS. Or something. Meh, can't be worse than the freaking Battle of Dagobah promises to be.

>>"since thanks to Jude Watson, it's obvious that he spends 20 years jaunting accross the galaxy, instead of watching Luke"<<

The implication in THE DESPERATE MISSION is that he's going home after book two, leaving Ferus and the crew to spearhead the series. The Kenobi-absent cover of #3 backs this up, too.

 

VADER: She must have hidden the plans in the escape pod. Send a
detachment down to retrieve them. See to it personally, Commander.
There'll be no one to stop us this time.

Isn't he quite clearly saying, "There will be no one to stop us from retrieving the Death Star plans this time"? From everything presented to us in Episode IV, it seems as though Vader's been on the trail of the stolen plans for a while... its the basis for Motti's sneering at Vader:

Motti: Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped you conjure up the stolen data tapes...

Thoughts?