Star Destroyer and Tantive IV

In the beginning of ANH when the star destroyer captures the Tantive IV, how exactly did Vader and the stormtroopers get on board. Did they use a little electic lift or a small shuttle? When 3PO and R2 escape, you can see the Tantive IV hanging motionless in the air. Also why didn't the Imperials close the bottom of the star destoyer after they "sucked up" the Tantive IV to prevent any escape pods from blasting off? The only thing I can think of is that the imperials didn't want the star destroyer to be damaged if any rebels tried escaping in the pods. Knowing this they gunned down any pods from escaping instead of sealing off any escape.

 

In the beginning of ANH when the star destroyer captures the Tantive IV, how exactly did Vader and the stormtroopers get on board?

My guess would be a hatch that latched onto the side of the Tantiv IV. Once onboard, they blasted that door and the fighting began.

When 3PO and R2 escape, you can see the Tantive IV hanging motionless in the air.

I don't think it was just hanging there. My guess is there were a set of claws holding it.

Also why didn't the Imperials close the bottom of the star destoyer after they "sucked up" the Tantive IV to prevent any escape pods from blasting off?

They destroyed all escape pods that jetisoned except the pod that contained R2 and 3P0. It was good target practice. That's why they didn't close the hatch.

 

This pops a question,

The Star Destroyer must have used a tractor beam to hook the Tantive IV . So why not used the same beam to prevent escape pods from escaping?

 

Have you ever tried snaring a tiny little escape pod with a heavy-duty tractor beam? It's very, very tricky

 

What I meant was, if the tractor beam is still active, the escape pods can't get away after being jettison. Of course they won't "snare" them one by one.

 

I did it once but it was more a matter of luck. An escape pod would be going for a very fast initial acceleration to get it away from the ship as fats as possible(if the ship is going to blow up, you don't want to hang around) Since the guns are operated by humans it's likely the tractor beams are as well.

Note they ahd to disable the Tantive four before tractobeaming it and despite the proxemity in ESB they were unable to capture the Millenium Falcon.

A smaller craft making erratic manuevers might indeed be much harder to capture then a ship. And since niether C-3P0 nor R2-D2 is living they could have a higher tolerance for g levels giving them greater ability to manuever.

 

I used to bulls-eye Imperial garbage scows back home with my tractor beam, and they're not much bigger than escape pods.

 

Why use a tractor beam on an escape pod if you can just shoot it? That's what they were about to do, but they wanted to save power.

The tractor beam doesn't look like it has much of a firing arc, or else in ESB they would have been able to capture the Falcon.

As for how the stormtroopers got onboard, most likely a small ramp was extended from the hangar and they walked on. We know from the Death Star that there are magnetic fields that keep in atmospheric pressure so they didn't need to close the hangar. (I think most hangars in SW are open to space like that, even the Mon Cal. cruisers, Trade Fed. ships, etc).

 

Why use a tractor beam on an escape pod if you can just shoot it?

To prevent droids to escape in them with secret plans of a certain space station wich you where ordered to retrieve.

 

We don't know if they could, because the officer stopped the action. I'd guess that a tractor beam needs time to be prepared, because when the MF was skimming the Executor in ESB, it wasn't flying all that erratically, and at very close range. The Death Star could latch on to an MF-sized target beyond a couple of its own diameters, which suggests that at least some tractor beams are not pinpoint, but instead affect a relatively large area, and can have extraordinary range. If the tractors of the Destroyer were active, they probably could have captured the escape pod, no problem.

Actually, when you think about it, it might not be a good SOP to vaporize escape pods instead of capturing them. It's hard to effectively interrogate dust.

 

The Tantive 4 could have been large enough to block the Tractor beams in the effective area. Certainly it would make sense to ahve tractor beams with could pull the target into the hanger and if the hanger was blocked the Escape pod could have bene untractorable.

 

Good point; the little escape pods were shielded from the SD by the middle wedge of the corvette for a short distance, at least.