Alderaan's planetary defences and involvement with the Rebel Alliance

I've posted this here to continue the ongoing off-topic discussion at the Fleet Junkies thread about Alderaan's defences at the time of its destruction. See http://boards.theforce.net/literature/b10003/21527953/p345 and earlier pages.

Sorry for the following huge wall of text and the multiple posts. I couldn't post all the text in a single one without the quotes looking bad ^^u

Yes, there is no doubt about Alderaan opposition to the Empire, from citizens and the goverment. *However*, most Alderaanians were convinced pacifist that never actually took up arms against imperial forces. Despite Bail Organa and like minded individuals role in the Rebel Alliance, he carefully maintained Alderaan out of open conflict. He tried to protect the planet and its citizens both from war horrors and from the inexorable destruction of its noble culture under imperial rule.

The ANH novelization doesn't say that. *Tarkin* makes that statement to Vader, not the third-person omniscient narrator. He could have been right, but as there were many other important secret Rebel sponsors, is possible that he was mistaken.

Weapons trade was both illegal and considered very shameful by Alderaanian authorities and cultural standards (Coruscant and the Core Worlds). All Alderaanian military supplies (remaining from the Clone Wars) were stored inside the armory ship Another Chance, and were not recovered by rebels until after the planet's destruction (Graveyard of Alderaan, X-Wing novels).

This means that those "munitions" must have been the result of Bail Organa's wealth and contacts around the galaxy to materially support the rebellion, rather that non-existent secret weapon factories on the planet.

Of course, there was the Royal Guard and other security agencies, but their equipment didn't go beyond small arms. They were also notorious for their 'soft' approach to law enforcement (Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader, Coruscant and the Core Worlds).

That was actually *one* brand new Nebulon-B commisioned by Bail Organa himself. The Resurgence served as the main base of his rebel group far from Alderaan.

There is no doubt that Alderaanian-sponsored rebels managed to adquire all kinds of armed starships, but those were not part of any non-existent "Alderaan navy".

In X-wing Rogue Squadron: The Rebel Opposition, Elscol Loro, a former rebel woman, explains how Tycho Celchu "got drafted into the Alderaan navy". However she was clearly mistaken, because Tycho actually volunteered to be an Imperial Navy TIE Pilot and, before he defected, was trained by Baron Soontir Fel. Also, during his imperial service, Tycho had to endure prejudices against his origin: "peace runs in your Alderaanian veins, can't be a warrior from a disarmed planet" (X-wing Rogue Squadron 25: The Making of Baron Fel).

 

...continued

Alderaan's planetary defenses are not fully detailed because there were none, as is *explicitly said* in all relevant canon sources, except an ambiguos one. Since your arguments doesn't recognize these facts, I think they are a classic example of a straw man fallacy.

Actually that's a nice explanation of a small plot hole in WEG's "Graveyard of Alderaan", where Leia believes the news of Bail's apparent survival without apparent logical reason. It makes sense that Bail ordered the construction of secure underground bunkers against bombardment. And seems that Leia hoped that miraculously he was inside and survived the blast. However, a bunker under *the palace* doesn't qualify as *planetary* defenses.

Bail Organa was trying to bring Alderaan into open rebellion, as many sources state. But whatever his goverment's role in the Alliance, the planet and its population was largely unaware. Their pacifism was genuine and well know throught the galaxy.

It can be dismissed because the ANH novelization doesn't say that. Instead of the third-person omniscient narrator, *Vader* makes that statement to Tarkin, trying to whitewash the genocide and give instructions to 'blame the victim'.

There could be other explanations about the meaning of Vader's statement, but there is no obligation to take it at face value as
truthful.

Actually, the so-called "demonstration" had nothing to do with the non-existent planetary defenses of Alderaan, as the DS was overkill anyway, it was about the Tarkin Doctrine and the Empire's willingness to show that *nobody* was safe from reprisals. ANH novelization:

?Dantooine,? Tarkin explained, examining his fingers, ?is too far from the centers of Imperial population to serve as the subject of an effective demonstration. You will understand that for reports of our power to spread rapidly th

 

...continued

Well, Ris_jSarek already answered this for me. Go read Leland Chee's notes on SW.com. The "highter vs lower canon" argument doesn't apply to this discussion because G-canon is contradictory on this.

Yes, who was really telling the truth?

Leia: "No! Alderaan is peaceful! We have no weapons, you can't possibly..."
Tarkin: "You would prefer another target, a military target?"
[...]
Vader: "The defense systems on Alderaan, despite the Senator?s protestations to the contrary, were as strong as any in the Empire."

Neither of both affirmations are refuted by Tarkin. Both Leia and Vader have reasons to lie at that instant. But we have the answer given by *all other G and C-canon sources* after 1977: Alderaan was a pacifist and defenceless planet when it was destroyed. Leia was sincere, and Vader was wrong or lying.

If we ever see Alderaan depicted again in the future, in the Clone Wars series or the future TV real-action series, I bet we will see the peaceful planet always mentioned in the EU.

 

Well, I didn't expect some kind of Spanish Inquisition...

Seriously, thanks for posting that.

There are two basic questions here, which I think can be separated out:

1. Did Alderaan have a planetary shield?

There's no evidence to support this claim, and a consistent series of explicit statements against it.

2. Did Alderaan "have no weapons".

This is slightly trickier. It is, as you say, entirely clear that Alderaan was officially pacifist, renouncing its weapons in 19 BBY, and that the vast majority of the Alderaanian population believed and upheld this stance; the weapons ship Another Chance was not reactivated.

On the other hand, it's clear that Bail Organa was a major sponsor of the Rebellion; we see troopers in Rebel unforms aboard his (armed) consular ship in the opening moments of the movie trilogy, and we also have some Alderaanian ships and troops fighting with the Rebellion in other sources. In-universe "Rebel" sources also concede that General Carlist Rieekan was commanding a Rebel presence based in the system, including a communications network spread through nearby space (probably an Alderaan Sector Command).

None of this, however, shows that Alderaan had in any meaningful defensive system, or any meaningful military capability.

And then there is Vader's claim (in the novellization) that "The defense systems on Alderaan, despite the Senator?s protestations to the contrary, were as strong as any in the Empire."

This is the ONLY piece of evidence supporting an armed Alderaan; it's important to emphasise that in abstract terms, it could be correct; it could ALSO be an outright lie, or even an incorrect belief based on false intelligence. Any assumption based on it is weak.

The question is whether you want to make Bail Organa a liar and a hypocrite on a grand scale.

***

On a tangential note, I rather suspect that the old distinction between a "canon" including the novellizations, radio dramas and comic adaptations and a "continuity" in the Expanded Universe is primarily a story distinction, never intended to extend to minutiae of continuity...

- The Imperial Ewok

 

As for the shielding argument, I just finished rereading Death Star- Tann Graneet, the guy who pulled the lever, makes no mention of any flashes or whatever, just Alderaan blowing up. There's no indication of any shielding at all. In fact, the novel really doesn't mention that there's anything really out of place about the whole thing.

Now, take into account that Graneet is one of the Empire's best gunnery operators. He's worked on basically every other type of gun the Empire has, so I'm fairly certain he'd be familiar with shield interactions.

Seems that one's really been put to rest...

Also, I don't think the Empire NEEDED any justification for Alderaan. Really, Death Star is just such a great novel, because it shows the Empire hurting people on the huge level of destroying worlds like Alderaan and even Despayre, and even its policies harming people on a more PERSONAL level.

For example, there's the IMSLO order, or Imperial Military Stop-Loss Order. People who were drafted into the Republic military during the Clone Wars, like doctors, weren't allowed to retire as promised. They were forced to stay on until the Empire was done with them.

Which, basically, amounted to none of these personnel leaving the service alive, and screw the plans they had for the rest of their life.

There's also the way the Empire got cantina operators and such for the Death Star itself. Imperial Intelligence operators show up at a place to scope it out, then the booze deliveries are suddenly redirected, the place is burned down, and a known arsonist is found dead in his quarters. The cause of death is given as heart failure, but it turns out the COD was written even BEFORE the corpse was brought in, and no real attempt was made to find the truth.

Basically, the novel went to every length short of flat-out stating that the Empire went in, burned down hard-working business-sentients' livelihoods, and then offered them a job on the Death Star, knowing they wouldn't be ABLE to refuse.

The Empire is evil on more than just the genocidal, mundicidal level. It carries its evil to the PERSONAL level as well. So whether or not Alderaan had defenses is, IMHO, ultimately irrelevant. They'd have blown it up eventually regardless.

 

The funny thing is, the ANH novelization doesn't even depict the destruction of Alderaan.

IIRC, the Han Solo trilogy mentioned that part of the difficulty of forming the Rebel Alliance was that the Alderaan faction refused to engage in military operations, limiting to providing medical support.