I'm not entirely sure what the purpose of your argument is. It's fairly obvious the Empire has never given a rat's ass about 'cost' or 'manpower'. Their only concern is "does it kill what we want it to", and it did. The questions of cost etc. were all raised in the now defunct EU and supposedly an Imperial concern where everything we see about Palpatine's military pomp and gloria points towards a man who can afford it. Seriously, how is something the size of a moon, or repurposing a planet, somehow more expensive than maintaining an entire galaxy? The idea that something so small as the Death Star or even Starkiller Base would make a dent in the finances of a military machine that can call upon the taxation of hundreds of thousands of civilised worlds is ludicrous.

It does when you get to fire it a couple times and then the people whom it is supposed to cow into submission blow it up, and you've wasted enough resources to launch scores of far-more-practical and useful ships.

Furthermore, the destruction of Alderaan just turned more people to the cause of the Rebellion... it was a net loss in the end.

And Starkiller base remotely destroyed the political and military centerpoint of the New Republic, which is going to cause unimaginable chaos, while pinning the blame on the Imperial Remnant (let's keep in mind the NEW REPUBLIC doesn't know squat about the First Order).

But yeah, let's equate it to the Tarkin Doctrine, which didn't even apply to DS2, and call it a failure, sure.

At this point, I'm fairly certain you just never liked the Death Stars in any movie, and your kneejerk reaction is putting you in full false equivalency mode, same as the people who somehow think Kylo Ren should be Darth Vader. Take off your goggles and watch the movie, not what your preconceptions think the movie should be .

Ah, OK, we're at the point in the internet argument where you fall back on ad hom and start trying to imagine what my unstated motivation might be so you can put on smug airs and start telling me to "open my eyes". Keep your advise to yourself, but the attitude is noted.

For the record, the first Death Star wasn't an issue, between Palpatine and Tarkin it made some in-setting sense... a massive showpiece statement in their doctrine of rule by fear and an unintentional symbol of their arrogance.

After that, the concept has failed, Tarkin is dead, and Vadar was not a proponent in the first place, so in-setting, doing it over and over makes little sense. In storytelling terms, the original trilogy tapped that vein twice, and all the subsequent appearances of "galactic WMD" amount to writers falling back on formulaic repetition.

(Cartoon in the style of Calvin and Hobbes of Han and Leia watching a young Kylo Ren cutting up snowmen and Han saying "He gets this from your side of the family".)

(Figured it would make people laugh and needed a spoiler-safe place to put it)

Yes I hate the nitpicking that people do to tear things apart. Either you enjoyed it or you didn't. If you didn't STFU and go pay attention to something you do like. I don't have time for these sequal haters just like I don't have time for the idiotic prequal haters.

Ahh yes, the age old, "If you don't agree with me, shut up!" defense...the go-to tactic of totally-not-insecure supporters of people/causes/objects/movements/opinions everywhere.

LOL, I am talking about the the immature "George Lucas Raped my Childhood" people or the ones that need to convince other that the movie was bad. If you you don't like just move on. Life is too short to focus on things you don't like.

I'm not seeing the 'haters'.

Opinions here seem to range from 'it was the best film ever ' to 'it was kinda average, overhyped or overly derivative'.

I haven't seen anybody saying they 'hated' it.

The majority seem to think it was fantastic. A small but significant minority were disappointed or felt it was merely okay.

There's room for different opinions surely?

I'm not entirely sure what the purpose of your argument is. It's fairly obvious the Empire has never given a rat's ass about 'cost' or 'manpower'. Their only concern is "does it kill what we want it to", and it did. The questions of cost etc. were all raised in the now defunct EU and supposedly an Imperial concern where everything we see about Palpatine's military pomp and gloria points towards a man who can afford it. Seriously, how is something the size of a moon, or repurposing a planet, somehow more expensive than maintaining an entire galaxy? The idea that something so small as the Death Star or even Starkiller Base would make a dent in the finances of a military machine that can call upon the taxation of hundreds of thousands of civilised worlds is ludicrous.

It does when you get to fire it a couple times and then the people whom it is supposed to cow into submission blow it up, and you've wasted enough resources to launch scores of far-more-practical and useful ships.

Furthermore, the destruction of Alderaan just turned more people to the cause of the Rebellion... it was a net loss in the end.

And Starkiller base remotely destroyed the political and military centerpoint of the New Republic, which is going to cause unimaginable chaos, while pinning the blame on the Imperial Remnant (let's keep in mind the NEW REPUBLIC doesn't know squat about the First Order).

But yeah, let's equate it to the Tarkin Doctrine, which didn't even apply to DS2, and call it a failure, sure.

At this point, I'm fairly certain you just never liked the Death Stars in any movie, and your kneejerk reaction is putting you in full false equivalency mode, same as the people who somehow think Kylo Ren should be Darth Vader. Take off your goggles and watch the movie, not what your preconceptions think the movie should be .

Ah, OK, we're at the point in the internet argument where you fall back on ad hom and start trying to imagine what my unstated motivation might be so you can put on smug airs and start telling me to "open my eyes". Keep your advise to yourself, but the attitude is noted.

For the record, the first Death Star wasn't an issue, between Palpatine and Tarkin it made some in-setting sense... a massive showpiece statement in their doctrine of rule by fear and an unintentional symbol of their arrogance.

After that, the concept has failed, Tarkin is dead, and Vadar was not a proponent in the first place, so in-setting, doing it over and over makes little sense. In storytelling terms, the original trilogy tapped that vein twice, and all the subsequent appearances of "galactic WMD" amount to writers falling back on formulaic repetition.

Oh, I totally did that on purpose to get you to formulate your own argument instead of engaging in sophistic deconstruction. Anybody can deconstruct. I want to see the rest of your hand.

Here's what we know about war in Star Wars:

-Planetary shields ensure ground assault is still a thing

-Capital ships are extremely vulnerable to planet-based weaponry

-Anti-capital ship weaponry has trouble defending against fighter craft, who can be equipped with weapons that seriously hurt superstructures and capital ships

-The Death Star-esque superweapons can one-shot an entire planet in a matter of seconds to minutes. (This provides an immense tactical advantage if one were to produce them cheaply. How does one produce cheaply? Slave labour and droids, two things the Empire excels at.)

It you just want something gone , they're still the go-to gun. Nothing we have seen in Star Wars is even close to as effective on the offensive scale, no matter how fragile it may be to the rock, paper, scissor principle that Star Wars combat seems to be built upon. They are essentially a glass cannon built for a single purpose.

Now, in RotJ, this purpose is to draw in the growing Rebel fleet into a dark alleyway at the ass end of nowhere and beat them to death with the superlaser stick while they're little fishies stuck in a barrel. That is the entire purpose of the death star in that scenario. Palpatine had no stated or apparent intentions of using this familiar bait as anything but bait to destroy his enemies. That said, in plot terms, its purpose as a direct and immanent threat to the heroes is identical. In that sense, it could concievably be called 'recycled', but ultimately, this is equivalent to saying 'X used Y to try to kill Z'. If you want to call that a rip-off, you're going to have to call a lot of things a rip-off, because it ultimately boils down to that. Everything else is just window dressing.

In TFA, the same weapon design is used in a completely different manner. It is NOT a clear and present threat to the protagonists. On the contrary, it is a routine military target to engage and serves as a plot device tp lead to and setting for the final confrontation, which ends up having little to do with Starkiller Base per se, beyond it being the environment shaped by this clash of personalities and ideals. That isn't a rehash, that's utilising something existing in setting in a completely new manner.

It's also idiotic to go around blowing up inhabitable planets... they're the ultimate finite resource.

If they fired the Death Star two times a second for the next ten thousand years, the average galaxy would still billions of planets.

But not inhabitable ones!

I would love to see the terraforming issue addressed sometime in Star Wars. We already have a cosmic wellspring of all life and the force canonically. But how are all these worlds so different and yet with the same atmosphere type etc.? How much is natural and how much is artificial? The old EU tried to tackle this somewhat and I'd be interested to see the new canon's take on it as well.

I'm not entirely sure what the purpose of your argument is. It's fairly obvious the Empire has never given a rat's ass about 'cost' or 'manpower'. Their only concern is "does it kill what we want it to", and it did. The questions of cost etc. were all raised in the now defunct EU and supposedly an Imperial concern where everything we see about Palpatine's military pomp and gloria points towards a man who can afford it. Seriously, how is something the size of a moon, or repurposing a planet, somehow more expensive than maintaining an entire galaxy? The idea that something so small as the Death Star or even Starkiller Base would make a dent in the finances of a military machine that can call upon the taxation of hundreds of thousands of civilised worlds is ludicrous.

It does when you get to fire it a couple times and then the people whom it is supposed to cow into submission blow it up, and you've wasted enough resources to launch scores of far-more-practical and useful ships.

Furthermore, the destruction of Alderaan just turned more people to the cause of the Rebellion... it was a net loss in the end.

And Starkiller base remotely destroyed the political and military centerpoint of the New Republic, which is going to cause unimaginable chaos, while pinning the blame on the Imperial Remnant (let's keep in mind the NEW REPUBLIC doesn't know squat about the First Order).

But yeah, let's equate it to the Tarkin Doctrine, which didn't even apply to DS2, and call it a failure, sure.

At this point, I'm fairly certain you just never liked the Death Stars in any movie, and your kneejerk reaction is putting you in full false equivalency mode, same as the people who somehow think Kylo Ren should be Darth Vader. Take off your goggles and watch the movie, not what your preconceptions think the movie should be .

Ah, OK, we're at the point in the internet argument where you fall back on ad hom and start trying to imagine what my unstated motivation might be so you can put on smug airs and start telling me to "open my eyes". Keep your advise to yourself, but the attitude is noted.

For the record, the first Death Star wasn't an issue, between Palpatine and Tarkin it made some in-setting sense... a massive showpiece statement in their doctrine of rule by fear and an unintentional symbol of their arrogance.

After that, the concept has failed, Tarkin is dead, and Vadar was not a proponent in the first place, so in-setting, doing it over and over makes little sense. In storytelling terms, the original trilogy tapped that vein twice, and all the subsequent appearances of "galactic WMD" amount to writers falling back on formulaic repetition.

Oh, I totally did that on purpose to get you to formulate your own argument instead of engaging in sophistic deconstruction. Anybody can deconstruct. I want to see the rest of your hand.

Ah, I understand. It's a competition to see whose opinions are best. That explains a lot.

As to the rest of your thesis which is that Death Stars are relatively easy and resource-effective to build, so much so that continuing to build them despite their track record of being destroyed shortly after construction is an effective political and military strategy... wasn't there this whole thing in the Star Wars movies about struggling to complete it on time due to manpower shortages? I'm pretty sure there was and it would be hard to rationalize how you couldn't get a dozen or more Star Destroyers for the same resource as a Death Star. And they blow up less often, too. You see, basic economics shows that you don't just have to prove that a Death Star is affordable, you have to demonstrate that it's better value for the same resource as other things - like a fleet of capital ships.

wasn't there this whole thing in the Star Wars movies about struggling to complete it on time due to manpower shortages? I'm pretty sure there was

Don't worry.

If they missed it, there will be another one out in just a few years.

So, we're assigning fiscal responsibility as part of the MO of a regime that mirrors absolutist France ruled by Space Hitler and canonically owns the galaxy's banks?

Okay...

So, we're assigning fiscal responsibility as part of the MO of a regime that mirrors absolutist France ruled by Space Hitler and canonically owns the galaxy's banks?

Okay...

So sorry - I was just formulating an argument. That's what you wanted, right? A supported argument rather than sophistic deconstruction. And figuring out how to finance your military has always been a critical factor of war. And on the subject, owning the central bank doesn't mean you don't have to care about economics. It means you have to care more . And... not entirely sure that the FO owns the galaxy's banks...

Military budgets have always been notorious for being fiscally irresponsible, as have been government structures where the will of a single leader is supreme.

As far as we can see in universe, the tactical benefits of a planetbuster seem to outweight the costs.

Add to that that we are talking about the fiscal product of hundreds of thousands of world versus literally one super weapon whose main issue seems more the time it takes to make. The alluded production problem was deadlines set, not money, so the resource that was strained seems to have been time. At no point, ever, is MONEY an objection for the imperial war machine.

We have no hard data on how Star Wars economics work, aside from there being a Banking Clan which Palpatine usurped during the Clone Wars. We do not know if modern economics apply outside of said banking clan offering loans at an interest. We have never seen a stock market or an in universe tax report. We literally do not know how much the Death Star costs or if the cost is in any way significant at all. For all we actually see, Starkiller base's actual structure is the equivalent of building a few cities or a couple of star destroyers. Hollowed out planetoids are a very cost efficient way to build something, especially when what you use to hollow them out (lasers) have virtually infinite power supply and all it takes is time.

Anyway, think I'm done here. It seems a pointless exercise in futility to argue economics of Star Wars with the just about zero information we actually have on the subject. I mean, seriously, we know...banks exist. That's about it.

Military budgets have always been notorious for being fiscally irresponsible, as have been government structures where the will of a single leader is supreme.

So essentially what you're actually doing is acknowledging MaxKilljoy's argument that repetitious Death Star building might be ill-advised, but taking the position that because the Empire is an autocracy we should expect terrible financial and military decisions. I dispute that - Palpatine showed exceptional perspicuity in his seizing of power and actually very adeptly used financial and economic tactics to destabilize it. More than one episode of TCW centred around interest rates and manipulation of the banks. Not to mention all of Hondo's little jibes about the worth of Republic Credits. As I pointed out, to prove your case you don't have to merely suppose something that hasn't been shown, you have to actually contradict things that have - namely Palpatine is a pretty sharp cookie who successfully played economics and politics and military adventurism for a long time. You want to compare it to Vichy France but there are twenty years between RotS and ANH. That's pretty good going for a Fascist government if you're comparing to our own history as you choose to. So I'm going to cast some doubt on your argument that we should accept poor decisions because the Empire is financially incompetent (which is what fiscally irresponsible over two decades would look like).

As far as we can see in universe, the tactical benefits of a planetbuster seem to outweight the costs.

Are you familiar with the term "Kettle Logic"? It comes from an old story about a man complaining that the kettle he leant his neighbour got broken. The neighbour replies that the he never borrowed the kettle, it was broken when the man gave it to him and that the kettle is actually fine. "Kettle Logic" is when any one argument might be valid, but throwing all of them together at once causes problems.

I ask because first you argue that we should expect poor use of resource from the Empire, then that it's a tactically sound decision. Anyway, it does not appear to be true of either of the first Death Stars regardless. The Death Stars proved poor investments. The Star Killer we don't know enough about the consequences to say but the argument was about whether continuing to pursue a failing strategy was sensible, so it's the first two that are of most interest. And I also repeat my point that it's not about whether something can be afforded but about whether it is the better option which you haven't responded to. Are you going to try and argue that you couldn't get a fleet of Star Destroyers for the cost of the Death Star? Because the Imperial Navy successfully subjugated the Galaxy. Non Death Star has remotely been so successful.

Add to that that we are talking about the fiscal product of hundreds of thousands of world versus literally one super weapon whose main issue seems more the time it takes to make. The alluded production problem was deadlines set, not money, so the resource that was strained seems to have been time. At no point, ever, is MONEY an objection for the imperial war machine.

Actually, the statement was that to meet the deadlines, he needed more men. So yes, lack of financing would presumably be the problem. Unless you're suggesting that in amongst the "hundreds of thousands of world" they'd run out of able-bodied people.

We have no hard data on how Star Wars economics work, aside from there being a Banking Clan which Palpatine usurped during the Clone Wars. We do not know if modern economics apply outside of said banking clan offering loans at an interest. We have never seen a stock market or an in universe tax report.

And finally we find that the kettle was never actually borrowed in the first place. This one is getting dangerously close to an argument that absence of evidence is evidence of absence. No, I don't recall a stock market being shown or a tax report in the movies, either. But then human history managed to have money and loans and the need to finance long before we had the London Stock Exchange. Take a moment to examine what is sensible here. We know that there are loans, interest rates, corporations... All these things are depicted in canon. Are you seriously suggesting that there are corporations but no ability to invest in companies - which is essentially what a Stock Market is? Of course there are such things. Lack of dwelling on such things in the movies is not reason to throw out all logic and inference about how things work. All that is necessary is to say that military projects must be financed - neither controversial nor believably not applying to Star Wars. What you're doing above is claiming lack of little details means we cannot draw sensible conclusions about bigger things. That is not so.

We literally do not know how much the Death Star costs or if the cost is in any way significant at all. For all we actually see, Starkiller base's actual structure is the equivalent of building a few cities or a couple of star destroyers. Hollowed out planetoids are a very cost efficient way to build something, especially when what you use to hollow them out (lasers) have virtually infinite power supply and all it takes is time.

We can make reasonable conclusions about this stuff, actually. If the cost of a Death Star isn't significant, why is it some special limited edition? Why couldn't the Rebellion get one built once they had the plans? Star Wars neither presents the Death Star as the equivalent cost of a couple of "star destroyers" nor is the setting consistent with a universe in which you have cheap Death Stars either. And where did you get the idea that "lasers" have an infinite power supply? There's a Hell of a leap in your logic to saying that the only significant constraint on building a Death Star or a Star Killer is "time". Time is money. That's not just a phrase. Sure, a motivated and immortal person could maybe build a Star Killer base by themself (maybe). But above that there's a spectrum of cost vs. time you have to keep rising up to get Time To Build down to anything remotely sane. It does you no good to build a Star Killer base if you've long since lost the war.

As for your winky winky statement. What I see is a few smug jackasses

Great. So because I see flaws, I'm a "smug jackass". Charming. You are aware that it was you who started in by telling people that you knew that their motivations for critiquing the Star Killer base were just because they hated Death Stars. Here's a fact: you don't know why someone feels the way they do about a movie unless they tell you. Seeing someone critiquing the logic of the Star Killer base and then - because you don't feel the same - leaping to the idea that they must just be a smug jackass wanting to hate on it, is not on.

while completely ignoring in setting information where it's inconvenient and literally inventing "facts" out of thin air where it's convenient.

I'm fairly sure that I have done neither. You are welcome to actually point out such things if I'm in error, rather than just insult me.

That's not argumentation. That's strawmanning. Condescension and ridicule from people quite literally talking out of their asses is a new low. I think I'm done with this conversation.

It is argument because I give supported reasoning. It's not strawmanning because my rebuttals are directly to your statements. And most definitely nobody has "literally talked out of their ass". At least, I hope not.

Yeah, I edited the last bit about an hour before you posted because I did not want to escalate this into an argument. That you posted it anyway in such a manner tells me I'm best off putting you on ignore.

Good day.

Yeah, I edited the last bit about an hour before you posted because I did not want to escalate this into an argument. That you posted it anyway in such a manner tells me I'm best off putting you on ignore.

Good day.

Alternately, sometimes people take longer to type a reply than it takes for you to change your mind about what you wrote. Do you honestly think I do a comparison check on your post later on to make sure that you haven't edited it since I hit reply?

If you want to strike a less aggressive tone and backtrack on comments about "smug jackasses" and so on, that's fine by me. I welcome polite debate. But as it was out there long enough for people to read and reply to it, you're going to have to do that by saying you've changed your mind about what they wrote. Not by attacking people for having replied to it. What you wrote above is not at all reasonable.

Oh, I totally did that on purpose to get you to formulate your own argument instead of engaging in sophistic deconstruction. Anybody can deconstruct. I want to see the rest of your hand.

I already formulated an argument, and posted it, prior.

Not my fault if you don't like it, or it stepped on your pet ideas, or want me to stick within some sort of artificial boundaries that you imagined up for your own sake.

And if you want to know more about my reasons for my opinion, or a more detailed version of a comment I posted, you could just ask, instead of playing silly games insulting me in the attempt to somehow "provoke" an answer out of me.

That's not argumentation. That's strawmanning. Condescension and ridicule from people quite literally talking out of their asses is a new low. I think I'm done with this conversation.

Well that's ironic.

Yes, I'm absolutely certain you had a very detailed response to each of my posts after posting only one liners the entire time. You know what's a silly game? Jumping all over the place and not making your point or goal clear from the get go, so you can hammer in with a polemic shitfest when the person you're talking to has finally had enough of your crap and rightfully tells you you're shitposting. That is what you and knasserl did in this thread: Make **** up. Repeatedly.

Neither of your opinions are based on the source material. You instead equate the mere mention of a term with everything associated with it existing, despite there being absolutely no proof of this anywhere. You are spinning elaborate fantasies about what 'must be', when the in universe reality presented tells us crystal clear that, hey, these things existed despite everything you bring up. You are trying to prove from an in universe PoV that what happened in the story cannot happen, with data taken from a very flawed understanding of how governments and markets work. And then you have the gall to go and tell me you have an argument?

The death star one exists in SW.

The death star two exists in SW.

The death star three exists in SW.

Somehow, they were affordable.

Somehow, they were the best means to accomplish their stated goals.

Somehow they actually accomplished that goal, wether they were destroyed or not.

You don't like it, too bad. That's canon. You can go on whining about how "it's not possible because my one semester of economics tells me it'd be way too expensive". At this point, I don't care. Maybe someone with nine semesters and 40 years on logistics like my father will tell you that all of these super weapons being built are the LEAST ridiculous **** in Star Wars. I trust his grasp on economics more than yours. I trust news reports about the scale and cost of two nuclear arsenals more than your jabbering about how much militaries care about the budget. I trust the EU budget report that makes me die a little inside when I read it, but shows the grim reality is that fiscal responsibility is something nobody above a certain paygrade cares about.

You apparently have no idea what and how companies, countries and militaries who can afford not to care spend.

Yes, I'm absolutely certain you had a very detailed response to each of my posts after posting only one liners the entire time. You know what's a silly game? Jumping all over the place and not making your point or goal clear from the get go, so you can hammer in with a polemic shitfest when the person you#re talking to has finally had enough of your crap and rightfully tells you you're shitposting. That is what you and knasserl did in this thread.

Funny, I'm pretty sure my statements have been clear and consistent all along.

So... are you engaged in this current ad hom in hopes of getting a more detailed response, or just off the deep end at this point? Really, there's a pretty deep irony in someone (you) going into full attack mode with the ulterior motive of trying to "get more detail" instead of just asking for it, and the accusing anyone else of having obfuscated or unclear goals. The more you post about this, the more belligerent and unproductive your posts read. Maybe you should take a break.

See, the problem with insulting people because you hope they'll "show their hand" instead of just asking for clarification is that A) you give people a reason to always wonder what your ulterior motive might be, and B) you show that you view the conversation as a "contest" to be "won" via tricks and traps, rather than an exchange of ideas and opinions.

Somehow, they were the best means to accomplish their stated goals.

Somehow they actually accomplished that goal, wether they were destroyed or not.

I'm gonna take a wild stab but I find it unlikely that any of the Death Stars or Star Killer accomplished their goals. Unless said goal was to be blown up by the Rebels/Resistance I'm pretty sure their destruction means they didn't accomplish their desired goal. I mean on the off chance that their stated goal was to be destroyed then sure ...... yeah they accomplished that with flying colors. Buuuuuut Tarkin talked a big game about how this space station would keep the other systems in line, which obviously did not happen. And the Emperor talked a big game about how the Rebel Alliance would be destroyed by the Death Star II at the battle of Endor which clearly did not happen. And I'm pretty sure Hux's big speech about making the Republic and the Resistance fear them went down the drain when the weapon he was going to use against them was destroyed.

However it can be said that all 3 did serve to complete their narrative goals. So that's something.

DeathByGrotz,

Are you aware that your posts come across as unnecessarily belligerent? What are you trying to accomplish through such hostility?

Jumping in head first...

I'm the first to turn to real-world mechanics to deal with the day-to-day living in the SW universe. Economics, information society--all that fun stuff--exists in my SW partly because I have neither the time nor the interest to imagine it otherwise, and partly because my players would probably stare at me blankly if I made it a "thing" and might never return.

I'm also the first to say, I'm sick of these death stars. One reason I prefer the PT to the OT is there are no death stars, the conflict is character driven.

That said, I think economics be damned when it comes to death stars. Apparently, judging by the media, weapons of mass destruction are a by-product of dark side thinking . Theirs is a quest for power, and what greater demonstration of power is there than the total obliteration of planets (and now, stars)? Basically, they can't think around that trap because their entire philosophy drives them to that conclusion. Logic and economics don't enter into the calculation. Sure, some in the military in the SW universe might be more prudent and question the utility of such a tactic, but in SW nobody says no to the guy with a lightsaber.

The case could also be made that when the dark side pushes its servants in that direction, the light side triggers a response. It's like 9/11: before that everybody on a plane could be cowed by a few people with box-cutters; now, I think the passengers would swarm them knowing it's that or certain death. Perhaps the light side was just waiting...

Yes, I'm absolutely certain you had a very detailed response to each of my posts after posting only one liners the entire time. You know what's a silly game? Jumping all over the place and not making your point or goal clear from the get go, so you can hammer in with a polemic shitfest when the person you're talking to has finally had enough of your crap and rightfully tells you you're shitposting. That is what you and knasserl did in this thread: Make **** up. Repeatedly.

What have I made up? I mean unless you're counting inference as making stuff up, then I haven't so far as I'm aware. And inference is fine if supportable - like you saying we've never seen a stock exchange in Star Wars. No, but we know there are corporations and credit so assuming the ability to invest in a corporation is a supportable inference. We know the Empire for all its resource built only two Death Stars, sequentially, and that their construction was resource constrained ("need more men") so we can infer that they're not cheap to build even if we never see an accounting sheet in the movie. That's not "making stuff up".

Neither of your opinions are based on the source material. You instead equate the mere mention of a term with everything associated with it existing, despite there being absolutely no proof of this anywhere. You are spinning elaborate fantasies about what 'must be', when the in universe reality presented tells us crystal clear that, hey, these things existed despite everything you bring up. You are trying to prove from an in universe PoV that what happened in the story cannot happen, with data taken from a very flawed understanding of how governments and markets work. And then you have the gall to go and tell me you have an argument?

No. I don't think we are. I treat everything in canon as canon, sometimes regretfully, but I do. You may be confusing different arguments. An argument about whether something works well or not in a story or makes sense, is not the same as arguing that it wasn't in the story. I think MaxKilljoy is arguing the former and I'm just exploring the logic of the setting.

The death star one exists in SW.

The death star two exists in SW.

The death star three exists in SW.

Yes, I'm pretty sure that you're confused about what is actually being argued here. People aren't saying major elements of the movies didn't happen. I don't honestly see how you could think they were. They're saying whether or not they think it makes sense.

Somehow, they were affordable.

Somehow, they were the best means to accomplish their stated goals.

Somehow they actually accomplished that goal, wether they were destroyed or not.

There are two meanings to affordable: "able to buy" and "wise to buy". I could buy a first class plane ticket to anywhere right now but I might say in common English that I can't afford to travel First Class. Certainly it fills the first meaning, the second we cannot know. However the loss of DSI looks like it could be borne so the first one works. The second and third arguments - 'best means to accomplish...' and 'accomplished their goals' Is a dubious one. The first one certainly failed at being the 'supreme power in the universe' and cowing the galaxy into meek compliance. The second one failed at wiping out the rebel fleet. Neither Death Star in retrospect was a success. Star Killer we cannot yet know whether it worked out as a good decision because the movie stopped part way through the story; but the argument was about whether it made sense to keep building these things one after the other, so the focus is on the first two really.

You don't like it, too bad. That's canon. You can go on whining about how "it's not possible because my one semester of economics tells me it'd be way too expensive".

Nobody is whining. Whining is just word meaning 'your complaint is something I don't want to hear'. And your quote marks don't resemble anything I actually said. Nowhere did I make an appeal to authority and argue I'm right because I studied Economics. Nor do you know anything about my education, so setting up characterizations of me just so you can mock them doesn't edify you.

At this point, I don't care. Maybe someone with nine semesters and 40 years on logistics like my father will tell you that all of these super weapons being built are the LEAST ridiculous **** in Star Wars. I trust his grasp on economics more than yours.

See, I don't get this. Nowhere did I remotely make an argument like "I'm right because I studied Economics". In fact, I haven't talked about my background anywhere. You seem to have introduced a made up status for me ('your one semester of Economics') entirely ex nihilo just so you can then claim that your father's grasp on economics is better than mine and that maybe he'd agree with you. This is silly. Arguments should be based on facts and deduction, not claims of authority.

I trust news reports about the scale and cost of two nuclear arsenals more than your jabbering about how much militaries care about the budget. I trust the EU budget report that makes me die a little inside when I read it, but shows the grim reality is that fiscal responsibility is something nobody above a certain paygrade cares about.

Sure, but nobody else has a Death Star. Would even the USA build a nuclear arsenal of the size it has if nobody else had nuclear weapons? Especially if the US nuclear arsenal had twice been destroyed by some guy in a plane, would they rebuild it for a third time?

You apparently have no idea what and how companies, countries and militaries who can afford not to care spend.

Incorrect. And I'm happy to debate this. And again, I'll refer to the Kettle Logic of trying to make simultaneous arguments that the Death Stars are both effective returns on investment and that it's plausible that the Empire should throw away its money wastefully.

Apparently, judging by the media, weapons of mass destruction are a by-product of dark side thinking . Theirs is a quest for power, and what greater demonstration of power is there than the total obliteration of planets (and now, stars)? Basically, they can't think around that trap because their entire philosophy drives them to that conclusion. Logic and economics don't enter into the calculation. Sure, some in the military in the SW universe might be more prudent and question the utility of such a tactic, but in SW nobody says no to the guy with a lightsaber.

I can get behind that. Basically, the Sith just can't get over their desire to have the biggest weapon they possibly can. They want to be able to sit in it and fly around and wipe out civilizations. It's a compulsion. THIS is an argument I consider supportable. I might use this myself to rationalize things in my game.

Jumping in head first...

I'm the first to turn to real-world mechanics to deal with the day-to-day living in the SW universe. Economics, information society--all that fun stuff--exists in my SW partly because I have neither the time nor the interest to imagine it otherwise, and partly because my players would probably stare at me blankly if I made it a "thing" and might never return.

I'm also the first to say, I'm sick of these death stars. One reason I prefer the PT to the OT is there are no death stars, the conflict is character driven.

That said, I think economics be damned when it comes to death stars. Apparently, judging by the media, weapons of mass destruction are a by-product of dark side thinking . Theirs is a quest for power, and what greater demonstration of power is there than the total obliteration of planets (and now, stars)? Basically, they can't think around that trap because their entire philosophy drives them to that conclusion. Logic and economics don't enter into the calculation. Sure, some in the military in the SW universe might be more prudent and question the utility of such a tactic, but in SW nobody says no to the guy with a lightsaber.

The case could also be made that when the dark side pushes its servants in that direction, the light side triggers a response. It's like 9/11: before that everybody on a plane could be cowed by a few people with box-cutters; now, I think the passengers would swarm them knowing it's that or certain death. Perhaps the light side was just waiting...

I wouldn't even go so far as to pit it in the dark side's ball court. It's the product of a certain kind of military thinking and absolute power. We've always done it, throughout history. We've spend horrendous sums to have the biggest stick. I mean, look at North Korea now: Does Kim Jong-Il really need an H-bomb? What's he honestly going to do with it without getting turned into a smear on the pavement? And yet, it's a big deal for him and for our media, because this little guy suddenly has a superweapon. A certain frame of mind which, in its own domain, holds absolute power, apparently gravitates towards having the biggest gun in the galaxy.

Jumping in head first...

I'm the first to turn to real-world mechanics to deal with the day-to-day living in the SW universe. Economics, information society--all that fun stuff--exists in my SW partly because I have neither the time nor the interest to imagine it otherwise, and partly because my players would probably stare at me blankly if I made it a "thing" and might never return.

I'm also the first to say, I'm sick of these death stars. One reason I prefer the PT to the OT is there are no death stars, the conflict is character driven.

That said, I think economics be damned when it comes to death stars. Apparently, judging by the media, weapons of mass destruction are a by-product of dark side thinking . Theirs is a quest for power, and what greater demonstration of power is there than the total obliteration of planets (and now, stars)? Basically, they can't think around that trap because their entire philosophy drives them to that conclusion. Logic and economics don't enter into the calculation. Sure, some in the military in the SW universe might be more prudent and question the utility of such a tactic, but in SW nobody says no to the guy with a lightsaber.

The case could also be made that when the dark side pushes its servants in that direction, the light side triggers a response. It's like 9/11: before that everybody on a plane could be cowed by a few people with box-cutters; now, I think the passengers would swarm them knowing it's that or certain death. Perhaps the light side was just waiting...

I wouldn't even go so far as to pit it in the dark side's ball court. It's the product of a certain kind of military thinking and absolute power. We've always done it, throughout history. We've spend horrendous sums to have the biggest stick. I mean, look at North Korea now: Does Kim Jong-Il really need an H-bomb? What's he honestly going to do with it without getting turned into a smear on the pavement? And yet, it's a big deal for him and for our media, because this little guy suddenly has a superweapon. A certain frame of mind which, in its own domain, holds absolute power, apparently gravitates towards having the biggest gun in the galaxy.

If we're going with the real world politics (though analogy is best used for explanation rather than argument), then North Korea gets a lot of political capital out of having nuclear capability. It forces others to the negotiating table and their weapons program already did this a few years ago. The West would not have been trying so hard to prevent this if it didn't gain North Korea anything.

Incorrect. And I'm happy to debate this. And again, I'll refer to the Kettle Logic of trying to make simultaneous arguments that the Death Stars are both effective returns on investment and that it's plausible that the Empire should throw away its money wastefully.

Or the way in which extrapolation, real-world parallels, and so on are only valid when they support a certain viewpoint...