Rogue One Can someone explain the whole transmission chain of events

At the end, what was the concept of their plan, what actually happened etc

I'm not sure I got it

 

I don't think we know what the original concept of their plan was. I'd imagine that it was "don't die"

As for what happened...
By the time they got the plans, the planet was going into lock down, which meant that they didn't think they could get the plans out the same way they got in. It also meant that the shield was blocking all transmissions except for those coming off the giant dish. Bodhi needed a "boost" just to get a simple signal out of "we're getting the plans get ready to receive."

They get the dish pointed in the right direction to transmit the plans to the Mon-cal ship, but by then all **** has broken lose. Does that clear it up at all? Was there something specific that didn't click?

 

The plan was to get in, steal the plans and get out again ("you are our only way out" - Cassian to Bodhi). The rebel troops were supposed to draw the Imperial forces away from the Citadel Tower, so that Cassian, K2 and Jyn could move unseen.

Then the rebel fleet showes up, and the Shield Gate is closed, in order to stop more rebel aircraft from entering the atmosphere. This, however, makes an escape for Rogue One impossible, so they decide to transmit the plans instead. Because of the large data size of the plans, the transmission would be blocked by the shield as well, so the Rebel Fleet needs to bring the shield down. The fleet, however, isn't aware of what is going on on the surface at that point, so Bodhi has to send a transmission of his own and inform Admiral Raddus that the gate has to be destroyed and that the plans will be sent to the capital ship. With the help of the supporting rebel troops, he manages to tie into the communications network and gets the message through, but they all die in the process.

Jyn makes it to the top of the Citadel Tower, re-aligns the dish and is confronted by Krennic. Krennic righfully claims that the rebels have failed, since the shield gate is still closed, the data can't be transmitted and all rebel troops inside the shield gate are going to get killed. When Cassian shows up and shoots Krennic, Admiral Raddus crashes the star destroyers into the shield generator and the transmission of the plans gets through eventually.

Tarkin, now in control of the Death Star, steps in and orders the destruction of the research facility on Scarif as a last ditch effort (conveniently getting rid of Krennic in the process ). Then Vader shows up and destroys the remaining rebel ships. He receives the message that a transmission has been sent from the surface to the rebel fleet's capital ship and he proceeds to board the capital ship in order to stop them from getting away with the plans, but ulitmately fails to do so.

 

The part That was troubling me was the point of Bodhi and Chirrut's deaths and the master switch that needed to be activated, given that Jyn transmitted the data regardless. I guess it was to relay the message to expect the plans

 

I have to say, I did find this whole planetary shield scenario very wonky.....I get what they were trying to do, but they really had to shoehorn in a lot of requirements to make sure that the transmissions were beamed out but Rogue One remained trapped.

 

The actual plans only were successfully transmitted after the gate was destroyed by the Rebels (by making a Imperial Star Destroyer collide on it).

The signal that Bodhi transmitted was just to warn the Rebels to expect to receive the Death Star plans. This transmission from Bodhi could only pass the shield because it was very small.

But it would not be possible to send the plans the same way as Bodhi used to relay his signal, as the plans are very large and the transmission would never finish. They had to use the giant antenna to have enough bandwidth and transmission power.

In fact this is very realistic.

 

What I didn't get was why Bodhi had to tap into the communications network in the first place. Why couldn't he just transmit his message to the fleet from the shuttle he was in?

 

For the same reason the FM radio station in my city does not work in another state. Lack of TX power.

 

I thought I recalled the Empire had jammed transmissions (that it wasn't only the shield?), but of course they hadn't jammed Imperial transmissions, so maybe that's why Bodhi had to be connected to the network. I also wasn't sure what the network was transmitting through if not through the satellite, which was pointed in the completely wrong direction when Jyn got there. Really I need to watch the movie again.

Vader could have just tried to destroy the ship, but no, he wanted prisoners so he could find the Rebel base(s) haha.

 

Bodhi didn't have the plans, only Stardust had the data disk. K-2SO also said that the data files were way too large to get through the shield gate, indicating that the files needed to be sent at a different wavelength. To get that data transmitted to the fleet, the shield gate needed brought down.

1. Jyn, Cassian and K-2SO infiltrated the base in disguise to get the plans. K2 was on guard and granting hardware access. Inside the vault, Jyn and Cassian physically retrieved the disk. After being overrun by storm troopers, K2 sealed the vault so the Imperials couldn't get in and stop them, and Jyn and Cassian had to climb the interior of the transmission tower.

2. They needed to get a message to the fleet to let them know to take down the shield gate for data retrieval. They had to tap into the comms network, so Bodhi and his crew tapped into it to let the Alliance know to take out the shield.

3. Chirrut and Baze supported the rebel incursion on the ground, drawing attention away from the theft in the vault. Chirrut activated the main switch for comms transmission.

They all gave their lives to give the Rebel Alliance and the entire galaxy hope. They never knew the plans they stole narrowly escaped Vader's pursuit. They never knew that R2-D2 vigilantly carried the plans to Yavin IV, where Luke was debriefed. That Luke, using the Force and guidance from Obi-Wan, hit bullseye where Galen Erso laid his sabotage.

Rogue One never knew...they only met the eternal abyss and were reabsorbed back into the Force.

 

Yes I understand all that, but did the film directly explain why Bodhi needed to tap into the comms network to speak to the fleet rather than just use the comms equipment on the shuttle? I didn't get all that looking for the "master switch" stuff. Why not just walk to the cockpit in the shuttle and chat to the fleet from there instead?

 

I'm not sure if the movie specifies that. I could gander that the shield gate required a specific waveband frequency for basic comms to go through it. Very interesting observation, though.

 

Its possible the Imperial facility had a separate comm system to the shuttle. We saw earlier in the film that the Alliance had a comm link to the shuttle so they were on the same frequency. That's my rudimentary understanding of communication networks.

 

Because the shield was closed, and transmissions couldn't get through. He had to therefore physically tap into the Scarif comms system. In other words, the wi-fi was down, so he had to connect to the internet via the phone line.

 

The film did not directly explain - this is something that is left to the viewer to answer, if they chose to do so, based on their own experiences. In some of the responses I've seen I think they left that answer in good hands. You do need some technical reasoning to make sense of these situations and given the fact that 90% of Star Wars fans work in some facet of IT this is perfectly acceptable.

 

I think the movie did explain it?

When Cassian contacts Bodhi to ask him to send a message to the fleet, Bodhi says he can’t because he (the place he is in) is not linked to the comm tower. Later I think Bodhi then tells the others that they needed to find a signal strong enough to pass through the shield.

They didn't explicitly say "we can't use the ship equipment because the shield is blocking normal transmitting signals" but I thought the movie was clear about the reason for using that master switch.

 

Yes, I thought it was explained too. It took a few viewings for me to get it, but I think when Bodhi tells two of the rebels in the ship to hurry- somewhere around that moment it's explained.

 

Cool, thanks. Now it makes sense!

 

Agreed. Unless I missed something, I found it odd in the scene where Jyn & Cassian realize that they're trapped because the shield is up, but then K2 says the shield has to be down to transmit the plans anyway. I sort of expected a comment from one of them to the effect of, "We still have a chance to make it out of here" (which would have made all of their deaths that much more dramatic).

 

maybe the death star could have blasted through the shield anyway. if tarkin wanted to destroy the archives, he could destroy the shield generator.

 

oncafar

Yes, the Death Star could have blasted through the shield anyway, because that's what happened later with Alderaan:



For one frame we can see how the Death Star's particle beam was deflected by the planetary shield, also suggested by Solo's original remark in the screenplay version from January 1, 1976:

HAN
Alderaan had a defense system. Even the entire Imperial starfleet [25,000 Star Destroyers?] couldn’t have done this. It would have taken a 1,000 ships with a lot more fire power than I’ve seen.

 

K2 said “they’re battling outside. They've locked down the base. [pause for another observation] They closed the shield gate.” The last two are not necessarily the same thing.

The base they were in was on lockdown, which made it more difficult for them to get out, and on top of that the shield gate was closed too. The fact that the base was on lockdown was pointed out again by Bodhi when Cassian contacted him, “we’re standing by [...] the base is on lockdown.” And notice that Bodhi didn’t even know the shield gate had been closed down before Cassian told him. After Cassian told him, Bodhi went to the others to inform that they had to go outside because they closed the shield gate.

That was the meaning of “we’re trapped.” The base was on lockdown and the shield gate was closed.

Which is why they decided to change the plan to “transmit the plans” as for Cassian it looked like “it was the only way to get them out.” They needed to take down the shield either way, but physically moving top secret data outside of a locked down base and with a battlefield outside seemed like an impossible task at that moment - and sending those plans to the Rebellion was their main concern, self-preservation was secondary.
(And before you ask “well if the base was on lockdown, how were they able to get out of there to take a walk at the beach?”, I’m going to assume that the moment the Death Star fired on Scarif, every Imperial inside that base panicked and said “**** the lockdown, we’re getting out of here!” and Jyn and Cassian took advantage of that situation.)

Anyway, I can see why some of you find all these complications annoying. Personally, that is one of the reasons why I liked the movie so much: it’s the attention paid to details, and the unforeseen complications (which usually happens in battles) made things look more realistic. Because realistically, it shouldn’t be that easy and straightfoward to get in, steal the plans and get out. There are always a bunch of security measures and emergency protocols that kick in whenever there is an enemy attack, though Star Wars movie do tend to ignore the reality of things to make the narrative easier to follow.

And I liked that stealing the Death Star plans looked like the most difficult and complicated challenge in a Star Wars movie ever, as it elevated the importance of the OT3 accomplishments in ANH as well as it made the first Death Star look like the most badass superweapon in movie history, because boy, taking down that thing was was no child's play.

 

Assuming base lockdown is the same in GFFA and in modern militaries, that means gates are closed possibly locked and guarded, armed guards are posted in all building entries, and nobody goes past them without presenting valid ID. Think hardcore martial law, or tyrannical curfew. So, yeah, that'd be a serious impediment to infiltrators.

 

I appreciate your analysis of this; for whatever reason, it didn't hit me that there was no way - even if the Rebels "won" the battle to open the shield - that they were going to win the war, with more Imperial resources able to be poured in. And, as you said, on top of the lockdown, no less.

Thanks!