How did the naboo cruiser blow up?

How could Zam Wessel do that much damage (considering she destroyed the cruiser and I think a fighter or 2) do all that? Did she have some bazooka type thing? Or does her ship have laser cannons of some sort? Because I know that lobbig a simple hand grenade wouldn't work. Any ideas?

 

3 possibilities:

(A) She somehow wired explosives to the cruiser before if left Naboo

(B) The deck the cruiser landed on was wired with explosives

(C) Zam "hit the ship" with some type of grenade launcher or something of that sort from a safe distance.

 

(B) The deck the cruiser landed on was wired with explosives

I don't think so because the deck didn't sustain any damage as a result of the explosion. It was all ship.

 

she somehow planted a bomb on the ship, because it would be impossible for her to launch an RPG type weapon and have it explode behind all the people....watch the scene over and carefully, the bomb that was planted before it left naboo explodes behind the people walking out of the ship.....no grenades, just a planted bomb....

 

I believe that Zam planted the bomb on the deck. The deck did not break because it was built extremly durable so that if something like this explosion did occur, all the people would not fall to their death.

 

IIRC, it was some sort of proton torpedo fired from a safe distance away.

 

It was a previously planted bomb. It was timed to explode exactely two minutes and 20 seconds after the landing gear popped out.

 

It was timed to explode exactely two minutes and 20 seconds after the landing gear popped out.

 

It's a question that's been preying on my mind, as I've researched in preparation for my AOTC radio drama fan script. I have analyzed that scene frame-by-frame on the DVD, and it CLEARLY SHOWS the explosion starting INSIDE the cruiser. Only a few feet inside and to the right of the "Senator," but it was within the ship's interior. It was a bomb, no doubt, one strategically placed to kill anyone on the landing ramp. According to AOTC Incredible Cross-Sections, the bomb was remote detonated. So Zam was likely somewhere out of sight near the platform, watching via macrobinoculars, ready to hit the button the instant the Senator appeared.

According to EU, Jango Fett hired Zam Wesell for the Amidala hit only the night before the ship blew. That doesn't leave her much time to find someone who's gonna be on that security crew, kill him/her, assume their shape and be on that landing platform in time. She also had less than a minute once that ship was down to get inside, plant the bomb, get out and get clear before the blast. Regardless of her appearance, she would have been spotted if she ran (as she would have had to). So, it's rather clear Wesell was NOT on the landing platform at the time of the explosion.

So, that leads to only one of two conclusions:

1: Zam was NOT the one who blew up the Naboo ship, and there was merit to that "disgruntled spice miners" theory of Mace's after all. Zam might have took credit once she learned what happened, if only to save face in front of Jango. This also reinforces the theory that Zam was a patsy all along who was going to wind up dead (with a Kamino dart stuck in her neck for the Jedi to find) regardless of what happened to Amidala herself.
Alternate possibility: Jango had planted the bomb on the cruiser before it even left Naboo, and he handed Zam the detonator the night before it was to land. Again aiding the "patsy" theory.

2: That Zam planted the bomb somewhere other than Coruscant before the ship landed there (no more than a few hours prior). N-1 starfighters (to say nothing of their pilots in those cramped cockpits!) can't go more than a few hours in hyperspace, and Naboo's very far away. So the cruiser must have stopped somewhere very close to Coruscant (Chandrila, perhaps?) long enough for the N-1's to be undocked from the mothership and for the pilots (including a certain Senator in disguise) to get aboard them. Zam would be in disguise as one of the landing security crew and plant the bomb while "sweeping the ship" for any sabotage devices.
But again, we're left with the question of "how did Zam find out the location and get to one of the landing crew in time?" My guess to this is inside information, passed from Dooku to Jango to Zam. (Where Dooku got it from we won't get into here.) Jango and Zam would accept the intelligence without question because bounty hunters/assassins don't ask questions they're not paid to ask.

 

aha! I think I figured it out. It has to have bben that little mouse droid that either planted the bomb or was the bomb. Any one else think this coul be right?

 

Well then later after that Zam said "I hit the ship but they used a decoy." It sounds like she hit it with a torpedo for if she had a bomb she could've set it for when they were flying to Coruscant instead of the landing.

 

Once again Nightowl, you have presented well thought out research, thought and opinion! Great stuff!

 

Nightowl - The explosion we see does indeed come from inside the ship but that does not mean whatever destroyed the ship had to be inside. The angle we see the explosion from does not rule out something being fired at the ship causing say the hyperdrive to blow up or say a small missile detonating inside the ship. This would explain the "I hit the ship" quote

 

How did the naboo cruiser blow up?

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