So the death star, it blows up planets... But isnt that a horrible thing to do? Wouldnt something else that kills everybody, but leaves the planet still habital be best? By blowing up the planet you lose access to all of its resources.

I know it existed as a fear weapon, but would some sort of virus bomb be better? Why blow up the entire planet? Just kill everything on it.

Lies! Lies, statistics and lies!

The Death Star is a mining platform intended to easily turn uninhabited planets and moons into their constituent components for ease of harvesting.

Don't let that little mishap with Alderaan be misused by Rebel propaganda!

And killing everything on it is not nearly as intimidating as just flat out wiping the entire planet from existence.

Why spend time killing off a population when you can just pull a trigger.

So much faster to just blow it to hell.

Yeah no more planet to pillage but hey there are BILLIONS more where that came from.....

Alderaan had it coming.

What with their pithy notions of "democracy" and "freedom".

And with the planet blown to bite sized chunks it will be much easier to mine a process those deep ores in the mantle and core.

Also... field of asteroids.. easy to mine, much easier than digging.

So the death star, it blows up planets... But isnt that a horrible thing to do? Wouldnt something else that kills everybody, but leaves the planet still habital be best? By blowing up the planet you lose access to all of its resources.

I know it existed as a fear weapon, but would some sort of virus bomb be better? Why blow up the entire planet? Just kill everything on it.

Going off of how it destroys things its also easily a Star killer as well as a universe damager with a small probability of destroying the universe and even the multiverse and beyond.

It was made for killing military targets that had planetary shields. Virus bomb would do nothing to the shield. The Empire had plenty of biological weapons, but because P.S. became more and more heavily used the chance of actully infecting there enemies dropped.

Besides the DS were made to also counter other SW that could lob things that were the size of planets or bigger. Virus bombs would be useless agianst those super weapons.

The deathstar won't be a weapon, it would be a scenario.

If you want to play the deathstar it would be in some sort of campaign as a superweapon in which every battle it either gets blown up or destroys a planet.

As is alluded to above blowing it up would make harvesting its resources considerably easier

Alderaanian's eat their young and kick puppies. Why do you think they had to adopt Leia?

Superlaser the site from orbit....it's the only way to be sure.

If I remember right, when testing the super laser to be used on the Death Star, they blew up a planet full of Stygium crystals. Then harvested the crystals to create the cloaking devices used on TIE phantoms.

Alderaan had it coming.

What with their pithy notions of "democracy" and "freedom".

Democracy?! Freedom?!?!

Wasnt this planet ruled by a monarchy? Wasnt their primary galactic senator a PRINCESS?! OF THE RULING FAMILY?!?!? Sounds more like despotism to me...with the wrong despot in charge.

Long Live Palpatine!! Down with the Rebellion! Down with the terrorists!

I got two of 'em.

Alderaan had it coming.

What with their pithy notions of "democracy" and "freedom".

Democracy?! Freedom?!?!

Wasnt this planet ruled by a monarchy? Wasnt their primary galactic senator a PRINCESS?! OF THE RULING FAMILY?!?!? Sounds more like despotism to me...with the wrong despot in charge.

Long Live Palpatine!! Down with the Rebellion! Down with the terrorists!

Pfaw, as if a monarch can't be head of state of a democratic society. .

What planet? I don't see any

you know, I bet it would of done just fine against the vong.

Cause the vong don't have x-wings, its one weakness.

Also... field of asteroids.. easy to mine, much easier than digging.

I dunno about that - with the apparent force of the explosion, would the planets gravity be enough to stop the rocks shooting away indefinitely? Seems unlikely to me. Maybe the star's gravity would capture them and they'd form a belt? Sounds like a question for Randall Munroe.

If I remember right, when testing the super laser to be used on the Death Star, they blew up a planet full of Stygium crystals. Then harvested the crystals to create the cloaking devices used on TIE phantoms.

i thought the tie phantom was created in the lowest pits of hell after several blood sacrifices to ensure that rebel players would have something they would never stop complaining about.

wow, now that i have said that out loud, i realize i might need therapy.

So the death star, it blows up planets... But isnt that a horrible thing to do?

Personally I think destroying planets and turning their entire populations of billions of people into dust is actually a really nice thing to do.

On the actual subject matter, a virus bomb could spread to other worlds, it's also slow, painful, and would let rebels escape.

The Death Star is quick, painless, and effective. It's the humane way to annhiliate a planetary population.

The death stars 'reason' is explained quite bluntly in ANH

'fear of this battle station will keep the local systems in line'

said my tarkin was it when someone questioned the risk of dissolving the senate.

Its not so much of a weapon you intend to use (clearly it was tested) but more like our nukes.

We had enough to destroy the world a dozen times over on both sides in the cold war, it was *knowing* that using them killed everybody that kept everyone from going completely WWIII

You don't want to use a planet killer you just want the threat of it, after all you can't collect taxes from dead people or recruit.

So the death star, it blows up planets... But isnt that a horrible thing to do? Wouldnt something else that kills everybody, but leaves the planet still habital be best? By blowing up the planet you lose access to all of its resources.

I know it existed as a fear weapon, but would some sort of virus bomb be better? Why blow up the entire planet? Just kill everything on it.

You loose access to its biological resources.

You gain access to million bazzillion quadrillion star tonnes of the metals and inorganic resources otherwise hidden away in the planetary core.

Blowing a mineral rich planet up and then sending in the Tie Diggers (that's a thing, right?) to scavenge the juicy mineral ore might be the most efficient way to get access to said mineral.

Also, terror weapon.

The Romans crucified folks, a very resource heavy and inefficient way to kill a human. But nothing said "don't mess with Rome" like rows of the thousands who did mess with Rome.

Poor Spartacus.