Saga How was Galen Erso's fatal design flaw anything special?

Galen Erso deliberately made the reactor core of the Death Star unstable so that any impact to it would destroy the entire station. So then why is it that all other main reactors in the franchise (namely ships and battle stations) have the same result when they are destroyed? I understand why the second Death Star had a similar flaw (to lure in the rebels). But if all other main reactors have the same result, then why is Galen Erso's tampering of the main reactor anything special?

Also, K-2SO expressed his skepticism that one blast to the reactor module will take down the entire station. But if this kind of thing happens all the time (the Trade Federation droid control ship being a good example), why would he be skeptical to the concept?

Also just making sure, reactor module is the same thing as the main reactor, right? (If not, then that answers my question)

 

Just coming up with retcons off the top of my head, let's say that most ships have just one reactor, which seems to be true, and that an inherent weakness of reactors is that they blow up spectacularly when they're hit. Knowing that, the Death Star engineers may have come up with a system of multiple reactors (supported by the R1 script "single reactor" limited damage shots) and that they also conceived a system where a reactor explosion would be contained, so that the whole station wouldn't be lost even if one vulnerable reactor detonated. But apparently Galen's purposely flawed design of networked reactors would actually allow a chain reaction to spread from one reactor to the whole system. Does that work?

 

When we finally see the main reactor in Return of the Jedi, it's in a massive isolation chamber; that might be there to contain any catastrophic failure. Ironically, it seems the Empire fixed the exhaust port problem, but never realized that the reactor itself caused the critical cascade (which is a retroactive detail that I kinda love, further emphasizing Luke's line to the Emperor: "Your overconfidence is your weakness.").

 

What was special about Erso's design wasn't that it could take out the Death Star, but that it was well hidden from Krennic. In the case of the Federation ship, the issue was that Anakin flew through the shields and got inside, which would allow him to destroy it from the inside. It couldn't happen from the outside.

 

IMO - The Death Star reactor core was not unstable. Sensors would have been able to pick that up.

It was a deliberate design flaw in the exhaust port system that would physically allow a torpedo to enter the system and detonate at the core causing a catastrophic breach.

The really clever part is how he covered his tracks and manipulated the Imps into thinking that his "idea" was the best solution for venting the system. The novel "Catalyst" goes into some detail on this and is a good read.

 

That's not what the movie says, though. If that was what he did, he could have told them that. He didn't, he told them about a reactor cascade, and we saw all the way back in 1977 that the Rebels had to figure out THEMSELVES how to trigger it.

If his plan was the exhaust port, the Rebels wouldn't have been able to destroy the station in Return of the Jedi.

 

The novelisation suggests that he used a little reverse psychology to get them to agree to putting in the thermal exhaust ports, too - by presenting them as his most disliked (because of the extra radiation danger to crew members) but fastest option, and pleading for the slower, safer option.

His supervisors immediately insist "The Death Star must be completed on time - a bit of extra radiation in low-ranking crew quarters is acceptable."

So, it's both - delicate reactor vulnerable to shocks, and thermal exhaust ports. The DS2 reactor would have been equally delicate, but accessed a different way.

In Krennic's dying moments, he remembers some of Galen's previous activities, and figures out the thermal exhaust port problem - and dies rather upset about it as a result.

 

Gareth Edwards himself seems to suggest that Erso was responsible for the exhaust ports as well:

It's a completely unnecessary retcon. Reactor cores chain react when you hit them hard enough--this has been demonstrated multiple times throughout the saga as a feature inherent to reactor cores. And exhaust ports exist to vent exhaust. The Empire was even aware of the vulnerability, which is why the exhaust port was heavily guarded by turbolasers as well as being ray-shielded, despite it being a million-to-one-shot in the first place. It was an inherent flaw in the design which the Empire didn't think could ever possibly be exploited in a thousand years, until they were proven wrong by one plucky farmboy with the Force as his ally. Any piece of technology that has ever existed has an Achilles heel--that's the whole point. There was no reason to explain that it was a deliberate act of sabotage. It's a detail which unnecessarily complicates the theme represented by the Rebels' triumph over the Death Star.

 

The Imperials can still be overconfident if it was an overlooked design flaw or deliberate act of sabotage. For the purposes of Rogue One, it's a great character detail for Galen Erso.

"So I did the one thing that nobody expected: I lied. I learned to lie. I played the part of a beaten man resigned to the sanctuary of his work. I made myself indispensable, and all the while I laid the groundwork of my revenge."

 

In the ANH rebel briefing it is clearly stated that the DS shielding was set up to defend against large scale capital ship attacks and that a fighter could slip thru and attack the station directly. Even a swam of "snub fighters" were not considered to be a viable threat.



Galen used this mindset against the IMPs by incorporating a weakness specifically tailored to the type of resources a small rebel force would use and that would easily be overlooked by DS personnel.

 

Except in their minds that which was explained already in ANH and multiple times thereafter wasn't enough for them. They also wanted a "hero" character in Erso who only pretended to be broken as opposed to that being what he actually should have been which was someone who was actually broken and afraid. Someone who had worked for the Empire but who at the end just before it was too late at least did something and revealed the existence of the Death Star and where the plans were hoping that somehow they would find a weakness.

Instead he's actually a really super clever liar (except that he isn't) who for whatever reason unknown waited however many years after he found out about the Death Star existence to tell anyone about it. Of course he already knew before that about the research to make Kyber crystals into weapons for super-powerful lasers (which he presumably told Saw about).

The basic problem with the entire premise is that why doesn't it simply explode the first time they use the weapon at full power? The actual reason of course is that it didn't when Alderaan is destroyed so they have to come up with something else.

An act of sabotage that isn't needed for the other reactor cores.

I'd say in their mind's it was there way of not directly contradicting ANH because the only other person to see actually saw Erso's message, Saw, was killed. Erso was considered a suspect character anyway and Jyn as a witness to it wasn't all that credible.

All anyone knows for certain is that the plans were on Scarif, they were stolen and the Rebels found the weak point to attack. They already know the target they want to hit was the reactor core because that is basic strategy. Whether or not Erso actually sabotaged it is up for debate and within the fiction of the story seems dubious since reactors not sabotaged also explode when hit by sufficient blast or torpedo fire.

It wasn't overlooked though. As pointed out they had defenses against fighters with the gun placements and the laser shield for the exhaust port. Never mind they could scramble TIES quickly as well. Even in ANH itself the Imperials figured out that there was a chance of success and asked Tarkin if he wanted to evacuate.

One of the points made is that without the plans to study they would never even know how to attack. The really important point is the plans. That is all that R1 really needed to focus on.

The above scene does come off as somewhat strange in light of R1 because Tarkin now should suspect that Erso might have sabotaged something. At least they should have had a scene where they ordered a complete check of the Death Star and could find nothing wrong.

 

Of course you can argue that the Imperials are still overconfident. But that isn't the point. The point isn't if it's technically consistent with the one theme of Imperial hubris. The point is if it communicates the same themes as before in a way that is just as aesthetically pleasing. But by overcomplicating the theme, Rogue One dilutes the purity of that theme in a way which makes it less attractive.

Before, it was about a bunch of bureaucrats who designed a machine by committee and overlooked a flaw because of their arrogance and their lack of creative thinking. That's a theme that can be applied universally to all machines and systems devised by large, impersonal institutions as one-size-fits-all solutions. Now, it's about a secret conscientious objector who (very luckily) had been unknowingly placed in charge of the project and intentionally sabotaged the machine/system. That fundamentally alters the theme, making it both less resonant and less universal in its applicability.

Whereas before the Death Star's weakness was the direct and inevitable consequence of the very impulses which led to its creation, now its weakness is because of an external confounding element which serendipitously worked its way into the process. That's not the same myth. It's an entirely different one. And if that's the myth George Lucas had wanted to tell, he would have told it.

And it's all the worse because Erso's role in the sabotage is a superfluous element even to the film he appears in. If he had had a last minute change of heart leading him to reveal the location of the secret plans to the Rebels, his character arc would be arguably even more powerful, and it wouldn't conflict with the themes already established by Lucas. There was absolutely no compelling reason, from either a character or narrative standpoint, to make Erso a saboteur. That plot point was included for no other reason than to patch up a "pot hole" that wasn't actually a plot hole. That's precisely why there are so many glowing reviews of Rogue One which praise the inclusion of the plot point for that exact reason.

 

From what we saw in ROJ it appears that the DS used a primary power core to feed multiple reactors as required to support functions from basic station life support to the full operation of the super laser for the destruction of a planet. In Rouge One only one reactor was required to wipe out a city sized area and was a relatively safe test for the system as a whole.

As we saw in ANH the DS shields allowed for the fighters to directly attack the station and its guns were not able to track the small fast moving X and Y wing fighters so the TIEs were sent because the stations shields and guns proved ineffective.

In SW we have seen that fighters are an integral part of combat tactics even when much larger ships square off against each other, so the DS having a squadron of TIEs remains consistent with established strategic and tactical thought and does not negate the mindset that only a capital ship assault on the DS would be a threat. What was not expected was an attack by only fighters without the support of a mothership.

The only clues we have from the OT is that the plans for the DS were stolen and that a weakness was found that was able to be exploited by the rebels.

This is all we have from cannon - Period

So while some fans might enjoy the thought that an inefficient , uncaring bureaucracy allowed a flaw to fall thru the cracks there is nothing within the framework of the movies of the OT that does not allow for the events of Rouge One. It all comes down to which story each person finds more satisfying

.

 

I don't think the reactor being unstable was his big ploy (as reactors in SW seem to have a certain inherent instability) as much as he deliberately designed a way to make that instability accessible from outside, via the exhaust ports... but hid this fact from his superiors, or made it seem a viable/necessary feature. The SECOND Death Star presumably wouldn't have had this design issue in it's completed form.

 

Which of course he didn't and had no interest in hence when John Knoll originally pitched it for Lucas' live-action series it wasn't developed into a script.

That was all that was needed and storywise would have made way more sense. Why didn't Erso tell anyone years and years earlier? Presumably he found out about the actual merger of the weapon with the space station not terribly long after his capture or at the point that it was going to have to be so large that it couldn't possibly just be on a Star Destroyer.

It's certainly one that I find perplexing since it's very clearly explained in ANH. It does show that many of the audience are Motti's who can't believe that their technology can fail due to design but there has to be some external factor that caused it.

 

For myself -

One of the most compelling aspects of the SW saga is how such a wide range of people are able to come together to fight injustice and become better people in the process

A whinny inpatient farm boy looking for a life of adventure
a smuggler
a Princess who choose to give up a life of ease to become a rebel
A young woman abandoned on a nowhere planet

etc , etc

Erso was one of these people, who realized the evil of what he was working toward and finding a means to fight back. A flawed person who wanted to be part of the good fight.

ANH did not address the reason for the DS "weakness" one way or the other.

Rebel spies stole the plans and transferred them to Leia for her to deliver to the Rebellion.
The plan goes to hell, Leia is captured then rescued
The Empire allows the Falcon to escape and tracks it to Yaven
The DS sets of to wipe out the rebel base

With a very short window of time , the Rebels find an exploitable flaw in the DS plans and come up with a last ditch plan to destroy the station. At the time nobody really cared how this flaw came about, it was all about the task at hand. To have them wonder about sabotage during ANH would have made no real sense based on the story being told.

However -

Nothing in the OT does not allow for the events of Rouge One. As viewers we were only exposed to a small slice of what had to have been a very complex and constantly evolving galaxy wide sequence of events. No flashbacks of corners being cut during the construction of the DS or committee meetings about cost overruns and not meeting schedule.

As I stated before it really comes down to personal preference of storylines. Some fans are going to respond better to a large , unfeeling system that screwed up while others are going to respond better to the story presented in Rouge One. But there is nothing within the framework of the OT that contradicts Rouge One.

 

Of note, there is this line in Star Wars: "We've analyzed their attack strategy, sir, and there is a danger. Shall I have your ship standing by?" (bold mine) so at least the Imperials knew something was up and it posed a threat. But I don't think they realized it would be an explodey the whole thing apart, think he'd be a bit more tense if that was the case.

 

The thematic framework of the OT absolutely contradicts Rogue One, for all the reasons I've already outlined.

Who says they didn't? This is a silly way of looking at it, because of course that scene wasn't written with the idea that there had been an unknown sabotage of the reactor core. The scene is exactly what it is: The more reasonable Imperials have begun to realize the Death Star might not be all-powerful, but Tarkin won't budge.

You're aligning yourself with those who think that the Death Star's weakness was a plothole that needed explaining. It wasn't. I think George Lucas got it right.

 

I completely respect the fact that you do not enjoy the story of Rouge One.

But there is a difference in not enjoying a plot vs that plot not being a viable part of a large and complex fictional world that has evolved over time.

A good example of this is Game of Thrones. HBO took a very well liked story and made a choice to continue the plot beyond what is in the books written by George Martin. While many people enjoy the direction the writers have taken, there are some who would argue that the writers of GOT have strayed too far from the concepts George Martin first put forth years ago. Its not right or wrong, simply a question of preference.

As for SW - I don't see anything in The OT that actively does not allow for the events of RO. You have every right to think that the mythos has strayed too far and I support your right to this opinion but do not share it personally.

 

I don't know anyone who thought the Death Star's weakness was a plot hole. No, it didn't need explaining. But by offering an explanation anyway, the filmmakers gave us another SW movie, one that many of us found brilliant and powerfully moving. If someone comes up with another SW story idea that gives us a view of familiar events from a new perspective and they can make it as good a film as R1, and do as good a job of not contradicting what went before, I'm all for it.

 

Agreed, the plot of R1 isn't supposed to be a plot-hole fix for ANH.

It's supplementary, I don't think anyone is claiming the Deathstar's weakness being man-made sabotage isn't a retcon.
It is an excuse to make a cool story that adds a bit of depth the beginning of ANH, namely the battle mentioned in the opening crawl in particular.

I watched it in between ROTS and ANH last viewing and the dramatic ending to the characters it introduces serve the story well Imo.
Personally I think seeing how the Empire affected Jyn's family, and knowing her father had the last laugh by building in the inherent flaw that brought them down is quite moving.
This nature of perspective of the Empire isn't particularly fleshed out in ANH so it doesn't hurt to have some extra material.
And the Rebellion felt a little more real in this I think. ANH has the more fairytale element of their objective righteousness. R1 shows conflict between different sections of the Rebellion, all working for the same cause but having different views on how to get there. I thought it was interesting that Saw Gererra at first thought the Imperial defector's message was an Imperial trap.
I like both (Rogue One's and the OT's) styles of characterising the Rebellion.

Yes, it was an unnecessary film perhaps and not crucial by any means, but it feels like a SW film.

 

Plus it's not like adding "forcing people to serve the machine against their will may become your undoing" to the themes represented by the Death Star is antithetical or nullifying to the pre-existing themes. One could argue that Leia already made that theme explicit in A New Hope: "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."

 

A little bit of head canon I like to consider: the Death Star's development and construction was a highly compartmentalized operation, kind of like the Manhattan Project. Galen knew he had designed a catastrophic weakness in the system, but because he didn't have access to the entire project he couldn't know precisely where on the station it would be. That's why the rebels still needed to get the schematics from Scarrif. He could only tell them where to look.