"Hold your fire. There are no life forms. It must have been short-circuited"

Is this guy an idiot or what? Why NOT shoot it? Was the Empire conserving Laser power or something? What woulda happened next if they did shoot it? Would the empire have won?

And why wouldn't vader go down to the planet to get the codes himself anyway? Or was he unwilling to go back to tatooine?

I had heard of a force barrier preventing Vader from entering Tatooine, but that sounds too EU for me to believe.

 

Yeah, you'd think serving in the Imperial Navy would make you a trigger-happy, bloodthirsty gunner.

 

According to the EU, Vader ordered the gunners not to fire on escape pods with no life form reading in order to find the location of obi-wan. This was a top secret mission that only vader and the emperor knew about. One of the gunners had destroyed another escape pod that short circuited, and vader promtply "delt" with gunner who had dis-obeyed vader's orders.

 

Because if it malfunctioned, and everyone inside is already dead, there's no reason to waste ammo. Just because they are the side with greater resources doesn't mean they like to splurge. The military values discipline and restraint, so I think its reasonable that the gunner chose not to fire.

As for Vadre going down on Tatooine to look himself, that seems like a waste of time. Are his eyes really that much better than anyone else? And how much more valuable is he when he's doing something as an administrator/leadre? Basically, I don't think it was worth his time, since Stormtroopers oculd search just as well as he could.

 

Considering a Star Destroyer's main reactor is of the most efficient in the galaxy, a few shots aren't gonna cause blackouts on the bridge.

 

You ever been to the desert wearing a black metal helmet and a black leather coverall?

Not fun.

Seriously though, they wouldn't want to destroy the pod given the chance that the stolen plans may be in there. They want to recover them, not destroy them. If they blow the ship out of the sky, they wouldn't know if they were in there or not.

 

And why wouldn't vader go down to the planet to get the codes himself anyway? Or was he unwilling to go back to tatooine?

Probably because of all the bad memories of the place, particularly Shmi's death. He goes down to the surface of every other planet, but Tatooine is too painful for him to go in person. It would have been interesting if he had gone down and came across the Larses, though.

 

well, that, and the fact he needed to torture his daughter.

 

> Is this guy an idiot or what? Why NOT shoot it? Was the Empire conserving Laser power or something?

They were just trying to avoid all the Imperial paperwork that follows up a turbolaser hit on a foreign object.

 

My guess is that they were ordered to hold their fire, so that they would be able to search every inch of the ship for those codes. If they vaped the pod then the Empire might go on looking for the codes for years when some trigger happy gunner vaped it that lone fateful day.

I'm not too sure about the Obi thing, since Vader seemed surprised to find Kenobi still alive in ANH (at least to me anyways).

 

So then they should have tractored the pod.

 

They were just trying to avoid all the Imperial paperwork that follows up a turbolaser hit on a foreign object.

"Is this shot tax-deductible?"

 

EV makes a good point. I think that's why unmannd pods weren't vaporized. The plans for the Death Star could have been anywhere, in any droid or computer. Am I the only one who noticed that the stormies missed R2 and 3PO at point blank range on the Tantive IV? I think the stormies had orders to avoid callateral damage to the computers and droids for that reason. All launched pods should have been tratored in, because what if SGT Groundrunner were escorting the plans to GEN Kenobi instead Artoo. Destroying his pod would have been just as bad as destroying Artoo's pod, because then the gunner would have destroyed the plans and the Empire would have spent monthes or years even trying to find the plans destroyed on that fateful day.

 

I'm with DLM. It's not like they didn't have the capabilities to bring it in. Chances are, even if it is a malfunction, it would cost more to let it escape (in the long run), or shoot it, than it would have been to just bring it in and search it from top to bottom.

Darth Dork^_^

 

So then they should have tractored the pod.

I'll go ahead and give you the male answer Beth. That poor gunner is paid to blow stuff up. Where is the fun in tractoring in a pod? We would much rather prefer to blow things up and get paid to do so!

Of course he did not vape the pod, but I like to believe it was only because he was under orders not to vape it. We all know he really wanted to target that pod and scatter its atoms.

Hmmm, I don't think I addressed your point Beth.

 

There's no point it blasting an empty escape pod. These men are seasoned warriors, not trigger happy teenagers. Soldier don't shoot off deck guns just for the hell of it.

As for Vader going to the planet, come on. Do you ask why US generals weren't crawling in afghan caves? No. Search missions are for the grunts, not the commanders.

 

Its also possible (though unseen) that there could have been other rebels/people on board that did try the escape pods but were blown out of the sky by the gunners.

I like the paperwork idea too.

 

I think there was more than one as the line if i remember was, "there goes another one"

i wonder where the first one(s) went then and did the shoot those down.

 

We've already covered the best arguments, I think.

However, I don't think the one about needing the DS plans holds any weight at all. It's their concern to make sure that the plans don't fall into Rebel hands. They already have abundant copies of the plans to their own station--and the thing is already built, even if they didn't--so there's no reason they need to specifically recover that copy. They just need to make sure no one else does.

 

If they blew up the pod, how would they know if they had actually destroyed the plans?

 

i wonder where the first one(s) went then and did the shoot those down.

Maybe some passengers tried to flee in escape pods? It would make sense to try to recapture them.

 

I just asked George and he says that this was one of those "your overconfidence is your weakness"
examples. The imperials didn't believe anything less than a life form could pose a substantial threat.

 

I've always wondered that as well. Once the officer said "Hold your fire" - then it's easy to see why the gunner didn't shoot. But why the officer said that is another one of those Lucas plot points we have to accept on faith?

I'm really more bothered that Vader did not go. He was a Sith, a hunter and a tracker. If he had the slightest idea Obi-Wan was on that planet, he would have gone down to the planet. And he showed no hesitation in going down to Hoth.

This is one of those 'lines-that-should-have-been-in-Clones' where Anakin made the same statement Luke did, "I'm never coming back to this planet again."

I just feel it is a gaping plot hole. But good topic.

 

Vader is a Sith, a Dark Lord. Not a "hunter and tracker". That was Maul, and he wasn't very good at it.

Vader personally went to Hoth to destroy the rebels, and possibly to find Luke. Neither applied to the Tatooine mission.

 

You may be drawing an assumption that isn't totally accurate. Any Sith would be trained in stalking enemies.

Ben: " He (Vader) helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights."