Why did the Rebels need the Death Star Shield down to land on Endor?

I have always kind of wondered this and im watching Jedi again at the moment. Ive searched around here a bit, so apologies if it has been answered.

Now not knowing why they choose to go towards endor via the Death Star, (I assume the rest of the planet had some sort of fleet protection around it), I was curious as to why they needed its shield down in the first place to go to endor?

Clearly as the holograph showed on the Mon Cal cruiser that its projected from the base on endor and wraps around the death star tightly. So then why would they need a code to deactivate it instead of just flying around/by it?

Any one help out here?

 

If you watch the hologram closely, you'll see that the shield comes up from Endor's surface in a cylinder shape and then it expands to wrap around the Death Star. The shuttle's likely landing site would have been inside the cylinder. And, if the shield size is accurate relative to the size of the moon, the cylinder covers a couple hundred square kilometers of forest.

 

How is the cylinder going to cover a couple hundred km? That doesnt make any sense.

Its projected upwards from the satellite looking thing that they blow up. Why would it be making ground cover?

And assuming there is some sort of shield on the ground, though its never once referenced seen used, why not land just outside of it and skip the whole hassle of stealing the ship and codes, and using them and flying by the death star?

 

Pay attention to the hologram in the Rebel briefing room. The cylinder is very large when it is projected up from the moon.

 

I did. Ive watched the movies like most of us many many times.

I get your point. But if it was generated via the satellite and projected upwards, ie the satellite that gets blow up, its focal point is the satellite. Thus its only as big as the satellite when it first comes out, and its above ground level.

If its projected from there, up to the death start, of course its going to have a good size to it when it projects out of endor's atmosphere as the death star isnt that far away from the planet. We only see the radius of the projected cone outside of the planet, thus we have no idea if there is any ground cover, which seems unlikely as its projected upwards.

 

The Death Star is 900km in diameter. The Rebels would have needed to have gotten well within that distance from the shield generator if they were going to make it on foot. Passing through the deflector shield got them both closer to the shield generator, and at least made it look like they really were a shuttle heading there with parts and technical crew. Landing a few hundred miles away would have been slightly suspicious

 

Remember, they were pretending to be a real Imperial shuttle. They had to give the impression they would be landing on that landing platform, which is probably enclosed within the shield. They probably didn't really need the shield down, as they landed in the forest. They had to keep up appearances.

Spike beat me to it, although I think they landed outside the shield anyway. I doubt the shield extended to the forest floor. It probably just enclosed the landing platform.

 

[image=http://omploader.org/vMWtm/endor.jpg]

This is my envisioning of the set up. Sorry its not to scale, just a quick 'shop.

And no im not trying to be a jerk here. I just wish there was some conclusive evidence to a shield actually on the ground as there is none.

Your appearances comment does make sense, assuming there is a ground shield. It wouldnt make sense to have a imperial shuttle landing in the endor boonies, or worse just flying around not in the imperial space area.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Endor_shield_generator_bunker

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Deflector_shield_generator

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/SLD-26_planetary_shield_generator

I guess maybe I am reaching for something I just need to take at face value, but its always made me wonder. If you read the first link we dont see reference to any sort of ground based shield. I know its only Wiki, but still.

 

Speaking of which, what happened when the Imperials found out the shuttle never landed? Or did the Rebels just fake a crash landing?

 

Darth Vader: "Leave them to me!"

 

Most of what happens on Endor is written off to the Empire setting a trap, i.e. you ask why didn't the empire wonder where the shuttle went - the response is they didn't care b/c they were waiting for the rebels to show up. Why didn't the empire notice that a half-dozen biker scouts never came home/reported in? Response is that the empire didn't care - they were setting a trap, etc., etc.

What is odd to me is the entire Rebel plan... it's to sneak in and blow up the shield generator. But yet they ask for the shield to be deactivated, fly right by the DS/Vader, and then go off and land somewhere remote and then they start knocking off biker scouts and then wait a full day to launch their "surprise" attack. They decide it will take too much time to GO AROUND some biker scouts... but then they wait a full day to finally launch their attack - taking time to wine/dine/entertain the ewoks.

Obviously the Empire did know they were coming (hence the "a legion of my best troops" stuff)... but still... seems like an awfully foolhardy plan that the rebels were hoping to execute.

If they truly thought the imperial fleet was out of the area... they'd have been better off to bring in the rebel fleet and land a massive ground assault team to destroy the shield generator (if they couldn't destroy it from orbit b/c it protected the generator itself).

Of course... this would have made for a much shorter movie... so I'm not exactly arguing against what did take place.

To me... the only reason they askd for the shield to be deactivated is that they HAD to have Luke/Vader feeling each other's presence. Only way to do that was get the shuttle to fly by Vader's Star Destroyer (why else was the SD managing the shield when at the beginning of the movie that was controlled by the Death Star?).

 

Hmmm. It brings up another point. If the parabolic dish was transmitting the power, why bother breaking into the bunker and risk getting shot ? They should have just blown up the tower holding the dish with their charges from the outside.

 

Because the generator is inside the bunker. They only had this many explosives and one try to get it right, so they took the more effective choice of destruction and blew it up from the inside.

 

I have questioned this for a long time myself. It would make sense for the shield to expand around the base (thus for appearances sake ask it be deactivated to land there because where else would a parts and maintenance crew need to go?) but the rebels just sneak right up to it later and so they would have had to walk right through the shield to get to it. If fighters can fly through it, then people shouldn't be able to walk through it either right?

As to the hologram as mentioned before: It is unreliable because the resolution isn't accurate. In other words the lines themselves distort the scale for anything that would be smaller the line's width. I think it's all just another one of those technical fallacies sprinkled throughout all these movies like sound in space and parsecs as units of time.

 

The shield doesn't extend all the way to the ground, but acts more like an umbrella.

 

That is kind of what I have chalked it up to Blackpool. Just a tedious type of thing we fans go over with a fine tooth comb that wasnt that important to either explain or flesh out.

Like you said, it almost just liked a means to an end, to have Luke and Vader sense each other to show their connection through the force. Nothing else comes of it besides dead bothans and Vader knowing they are coming.

 

The Empire is monitoring anything and everything that could approach Endor. If a ship is to land on Endor, it has to be cleared first trough a standard security procedure (deactivation - activation of the shield + code clearance). Anything else detected in Endor's atmosphere without having passed this security check is considered a foe...

The rebels knew this for a fact (bothan spies) and went on with the same procedure to avoid any suspicion. "Where did they land?" is a good question, but perhaps it was OK to land anywhere on the moon after having been code cleared and navigated though a specific route, as part of the emperial procedure.

 

Don't you guys get it Palpatine, Vader, and Piett were in on it. "shall I clear them?" " No leave them to me, as well as. "We are quite safe from your pitifull little band here". It is I that something something alowed the spies to no the location of the shield generator!" "The emporer has something special (planned)". "It is pointless to resist my son".

Shall I go on?

 

The problem I have with this is no matter how dumb those scumbag rebels were, you'd think they would have figured out at some point it was too easy. They land a shuttle in the middle of woods and no one comes to check it out? That's.... slightly suspicious.

 

We DO get it my friend... You 're absolutely right about it (... so are Dark Lady Mara, SoonerSean, etc.). I 'm just trying to de-emphasize the rebels-being-that-dump thing...