Rogue One The Death Star Questions/Discussion thread

I reckon it wasn't gonna look as cool as him wrecking the Senate at the end of ROTS

 

Since no one is quoting Tarkin's complete statement:

"That's impossible! How will the Emperor maintain control without the bureaucracy?"

"The Regional governors now have direct control over their territories. Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this battle station."

 

I just thought of something and I'm sure there's an answer out there that hopefully someone can explain for me.

The DS moved through hyperspace to get to both Jedha and Scariff and was pretty much in-position to fire.

Why was it not in-position when it arrived in Yavin space? Inaccurate coordinates? They should have been able to just boom their way into position just like in R1.

 

Suspense.

 

Suspense.

And we don't how accurate the DS's hyperspace engines are, note Tarkin would know which side the gas giant Yavin IV would be on. And technically, it's dangerous to come out of hyperspace near a star. Not to mention Tarkin not being too concerned about an attack by individual spaceships. Heck, only 4 out of 30 ships survived... and it was a lone ship piloted an unknown pre-Jedi who ultimately destroyed the DS. Without him, the mission would likely have been a complete failure.

 

Tan-Wessel

I think the gravity pull of the gas giant Yavin forced the Death Star to arrive at the Yavin System at a healthy distance and the moon with the Rebel base was on the "far side of the planet" (they couldn't just hyperspace through Yavin...).

Add to this that we have no clue how long it took the superweapon to recharge after the destruction of Alderaan (which probably requires more energy and/or exotic weapons' fuel than just single shots devastating surface targets or single ships). To save energy they might have just put the Death Star in some kind of geostationary orbit, making use of Yavin's gravitational pull for acceleration.

And the prime objective was to destroy the moon with the Rebel base, which wasn't going anywhere.

 

I think it was great to see more of the Death Star. I would have liked to see even more. It would be nice to see the internal workings and how big it was inside and how you moved around etc. If its the size of a moon Obiwan can't have reached the tractor beam on foot as an example which would have been good to see.

 

MS1

Same here, I would have loved to see the Star Destroyer bay at the equatorial ring where Tarkin's Star Destroyer was parked.

 

Did you know that the Death Star is 120KM in diameter? I don't know if this measurement is exact, but here's where I found out...

 

Old EU canon and new canon have both flip-flopped on this considerably. At the moment it's up in the air (with the most recent source saying 160km).

 

As Strange Old Hermit says, it didn't take them 20 years to make Death Star 2. Death Star one only took as long as it did because they needed the breakthroughs Galen Erso provided. Once those were made DS2 could happen relatively quickly. Especially as they built the superlaser first before finishing the superstructure. I don't recall for sure but it may well have not even had its' hyperdrive system installed at the time of RotJ.

 

Multiple Death Star threads merged here.

 

The key to this was Tarkin's R1 dialogue. It went something along the lines after he complimented Krennic for the successful test that he will assume command of a weapon he had long recommended to the Emperor years ago due to Krennic's inadequacy of being a military director.

Tarkin was to assume command no matter what - Tarkin novel had said so much in the chapter Red, In Tooth and Claw. The Emperor stated that once the station is complete that he would wield the ultimate power in the Galaxy, and he surveyed the room with only the Emperor and Vader in his audience - then responded that would never be the case.

Tarkin was a Sheev protege, and even maybe his only friend to a degree...I mean they had what was an essentially a pleasant fireside chat in his private chancellory room with Tarkin. Flattered him...genuinely interested in his philosophical writings. Tarkin, Vader and the Emperor stood on the glass ceiling above Krennic's head. Those three were of a like mind.

Krennic's machinations, ambitions and life of dedication to the project was only rewarded with a blinding emerald gleem from a man, who hardly regarded him as a rival.
In this way, Krennic was almost a tragic character who had a moment to live a different life with Galen...yet chose the seductive path of ambition...which never and would have never materialized...a lifetime wasted.

 

The Death a Star did not jump to Jedha, it was already in orbit, because they were loading ask the Kyber Chrystals. We saw the final installation of the super weapon while in orbit there.

They had an occupational presence in Scarif...more system knowledge.

Yavin, they weren't familiar with.

 

Is there a definitive date of when DS2 started to be built?

The DS couldn't just "jump" to Yavin, they followed the Falcon using an electronic tracking device, they don't know which planet or moon the Falcon is on until they entered the system.

 

I really like that the death star makes an appearance because we saw the death star and tarkin at the end of ep 3, so this helps with that transition as well!

 

Don't we just see it appear on the horizon of Scarif? Kind of like a rising moon?

 

How do you think it got there from Jedha?

 

The DS makes more than an appearance. It's as integral to the plot as can be.

 

Hyperspace jump, sure, I'm just saying it's not made explicit that it actually emerged from hyperspace that close to Jehda. Could've been circling around *celestial body* for a few minutes first, just like at Yavin. We never see it emerge directly from space and then fire.

 

It actually took quite awhile to position itself over Jehda.

That said... It wouldn't require such precision nor proximity to target an entire planet

 

That's why i keep wondering if Tarkin really wanted to blow Yavin 4 to bits instead of just destroying the rebel base with a more surgical strike.

 

He ordered the opening fire the moment he had full line of sight and the planet Yavin was not blocking his view of Yavin IV - I don't think he really cared about surgical striking at this point.

Plus, there's no "single reactor only" the way there was for Jedha and Scarif.

 

Scarif and Jedha are planets, Javin IV is a moon orbiting a giant gas planet. The DS can arrive and set itself on orbit on a planet fairly quickly and fire on the planet. But to fire on a moon is a bit more complicated as the DS is itself a small moon.

Without trying to get into the gravitational effects of such a huge mass just entering into orbit, if you suspend your disbelief a little bit you can find that the DS attacking a planet is different than the DS attacking a moon orbiting a planet.

The DS was more menacing in RO I think because it blew places and people where the characters we are following in the story are located.

Did anyone else found it odd to see the laser dish pointing towards the planet? in ANH and ROTJ the camera or shots always show the super-laser disk on the up-side of the DS (with regards to the screen), but in RO we see it also turned on it's "head". Which is non-sense as it has artificial gravity, but still looks odd to me because in all other shots on all other movies the DS always has the dish on the "top" half of the sphere?