The officer advising Tharkin to evacuate wouldn't be the first guy in such a position to be ignored by the man in charge, for better or for worse. AFAIK, we don't know that guy's credentials and rank. Tarkin is likely convinced that his Death Star is invulnerable to fighters (in 99.99% of the situations that likely is the case too). Now he gets a guy telling him it's not and he should evacuate. Either this guy has found, on the fly, a weakness that the entire design team missed or he's just overreacting under combat stress. Which one would Tarkin consider more likely? Moreover, if he evacuate and everything proceeds as planned, he has just lost a ton of credibility.

Additionally, not launching fighters at all might also be an attempt to sideline Vader and keep the entire glory of ending the Rebellion to himself.

Piett at Hoth: there's no indication he was aware the rebels had an ion cannon. There's also no indication his fighters were in the hangar as opposed to dispersed to cover more potential escape routes from Echo Base. In the absence of the ion cannon, Piett's ISD can more than adequately handle one transport and 2 X-wings.

4 hours ago, Red Castle said:

And let go the EU, it doesn't mean anything now. Unlearn what you have learned....

The EU is better than the Disney trash that has been produced thus far (Rogue One being an exception). It had its problems, but tells a better story and follows continuity better (the main story line books I'm talking about now). The Disney trash is total alternate universe stuff.

11 hours ago, Astech said:

Well, we have no real idea of what things in star wars cost, so a real-world parallel is the closest we can come. The lowest budget real-world military combat aircrat (that are half-decent) like the SU-34 still cost 36 million USD. The most expensive mobile ground artillery would probably be the M1-A2, costing a meagre 6.2 million USD each. Of course, stationary ground artillery is far cheaper than that, and stationary AA weapons are cheaper still.

If the same relative costs hold true in Star Wars (which they really should, on the face of it), then risking a single TIE fighter is far worse than letting the X-wings pound cheap turrets for a couple minutes.

Yes, ridiculous to send less than 6 average skill TIEs. Vader is the best pilot in the galaxy, Black Squadron is one of the best star fighter squadrons.

Vader and Tarkin were rivals. Whatever Tarkin did, Vader had to outdo or belittle. Killing off the fighters that posed small threat lets Vader say "Your station only succeeded because I protected your little plan". Maybe Vader also disagreed with Tarkin's tactical decsions, but that misses the main point.

It's also an incredibly obvious ploy for time. 'Oldest one in the book' doesn't even begin to cover it. Really, sending a low ranking officer to parley while, within view of the parleying party rallying and escaping.

Paige ex machina aside, it's also a huge tactical blunder to let heavy bombers anywhere near capital ships. Its been a critical part of real world warfare since the second world war. Sending out interceptor craft long before bombers reach their target is an obvious and easy way of dealing with them.

Attacking a person instead of their argument is a pretty sad move.

Alright, I think that argument went far enough to show my point. When you love something, like you clearly love the OT as much as I do, you'll take the time to try and justify the errors in it as if they were not errors in the first place (mental gymnastic I think it has been called earlier), whereas if you hate a movie, like you clearly hate TLJ and everything in it, you'll easily dismiss it as stupidity and plot holes that break immersion.

Take that Battle of Hoth transport scene for exemple. Since it is in the OT, something you love, you actually created a story to explain and justify why there was no fighters at all there to attack the transports. And that's okay, it allows you to continue to perceive the Empire as a strong military machine that doesn't make any errors. Now, if this scene was part of TLJ, I'm pretty sure that you would have jump on the occasion to use it to show how bad and stupid the First Order really is and would probably have laughed at the idea that there was in fact fighter there, you just can't see them. But the truth is, there was no fighters simply because it serves the story to not have any fighters ready to intercept the transport. The transport had to escape and well, having fighters there ready to intercept would have prevented it.

18 hours ago, Astech said:

See, that officer wasn't asking if he should sound an alert to evacuate the whole Death Star, he was simply advising Tarkin that the space station wasn't invincible after all - an incredibly small weakness had been discovered in a well-defended trench. Tarkin, being the arrogant, power-hungry man he was, refused to evacuate himself (thus losing credibility). It's a totally reasonable course of events.

Tarkin not scrambling fighters is also a good tactical move. If that rebel base was destroyed, those starfighters would be grounded within a week, never to fly again. It was pointless to scramble fighters against an enemy you could beat without ever shooting them.

Virtually none? It's nonsensical to leave exposed fighters grounded when an air battle is raging nearby - that's leaving unprotected assets out for the enemy.

In the old EU an enemy of Rogue Squadron sends an entire flight (72) of TIE fighters to kill them - six per X-wing, in territory unfamiliar to the X-wings. Even then Wedge wasn't sure if he would die. Hux sending any less than that against next-generation fighters is just ridiculous.

Here's the thing - Hux is the highest ranking military officer in the FO. In other words, he knows everything there is to know about Resistance equipment (especially since they are using slightly outdated technology). How they can be modified, their vulnerabilities and their strengths. If Hux didn't know about Poe's potential in that fight, then he was entirely incompetent.

It's pretty obvious from the way things played out that Hux made awful mistakes. The thing is that they were rookie mistakes, not the kind of small misstep someone like Palpatine would make.

Perhaps they were staying out of the way of the turbolaser fire that was about to start pouring out of the nearby ISD? Which then suddenly wasn't an option when the Ion Cannon hit. Plus, it's well known that the on-screen elements of the hoth evacuation weren't the only aspects - there were thousands of craft all evacuating - it's entirely possible that a few transports escaped without any enemy contact just because the Imperials were focusing on fighter craft.

As was seen, Vader's plan was entirely realistic. Black Squadron killed off all but three ace pilots. They then proceeded to kill one (Biggs), severely damage another (Wedge), and Vader was narrowing in on the last when what could definitely be considered a Han Solo ex machina takes Vader out.

Of course, even then, Vader would have accomplished his goal - Luke would have missed and been gunned down on his next run without escorting fighters, Han would have had to bail with his larger ship anyway, and the Death Star would live. Only the fact that Luke was a space wizard thought to have been killed off by the Empire let luke make that shot.

Piett I'm iffy about. Of course, he's just been promoted into a position above his talent level (thanks Vader), so I can accept him making some small mistakes like letting transports escape. If you've ever played Armada, you'd know that Transports can very easily die in seconds to ISD fire, so not scrambling fighters against them was an acceptable course of action.

A lone puny fighter flown by a Commander (without the authority to offer or accept surrender terms) isn't grounds for a peace accord, so that's out as an option. Hux deciding to brag - when he should know that the X-wing was a threat - is another rookie error. Hux not scrambling fighters the moment he drops out of hyperspace to attack the remaining grounded forces is a mistake. And if nothing else, he managed to miss the incredibly slow and large mass of bombing craft moving towards him in open space - that would have been a great reason to scramble fighters earlier. Strangely enough though, that was Hux's best military performance - every other time we see him he's more incompetent.

Dude, just stop. It's getting sad.

If you don't see that you are going out of your way to justify the events of the OT as logical, I don't know what can make you see that.

The OT has mistakes and plot holes. It's fine if you like it regardless. But denying their existence is not really defensible. If at any point during your argument you refer to an outside (not in the movies) source to explain something, the movie isn't doing its job right.

This includes things like the reasons behind a random officer's actions. You don't know why they notified Tarkin the way they did. And you don't know the the extent of imperial awareness of the Flaw.

What you say here is made up by you.

But what really shows you your bias, is your repeated attempts at explaining why it makes sense to leave the rebel fighters to be.

There IS a danger.

Even if there wasn't, there is no reason to leave any fighter getting in free shots against your valuable asset. (Not to even mention the old EU capabilities of protontorpedoes... these are basically nuclear warheads.)

Blowing up the rebel base ain't gonna make the fighters go away.

Your point about turbolaser turrets is also strange. First of all, these are more analogous to the heavy batteries navy ships have, but more importantly, TIEs are harder to hit, therefore harder to destroy. Do I really have to explain the tactical benefits of mobility? A large force of scrambled fighters (no doubt available to the death star) would stop the attack with little to no losses. (But according to you, tie fighters simultaneously are and are not a threat to xwings)

But finally... Tarkin being arrogant is not an excuse. That (and similar issues) are precisely the reason the empire is incompetent. They make mistakes all the time.

Admitting it, does not make it better. Similarly the throwaway line about Hux/Kylo (he says the same about both) doesn't make them better choices for high command.

Regarding Vader's competence: taking Black Squadron and only Black Squadron to fight at Yavin is of debatable merit.

But you know what's not debatable? Summarily executing your officer corps as a matter of routine whenever they fail and you're nearby is hilariously poor leadership, and use of resources, and etc. If you have so many inept personnel becoming flag officers that murdering them every couple days isn't actually impairing your force's military effectiveness, maybe , just maybe , there's a better way to approach the problem. Like, after you executed your third admiral you could then go murder everyone on every promotion review board that approved the admiral's various new positions. And then go murder some instructors at the academy, because what the ****, might as well start at the source eh? Plus, aren't there like thousands of star destroyers? Even a serial killer as prolific as Vader in Ep. V won't make a dent in the incompetents that (he believes) are scattered throughout the fleet.

Which is why I rather like the take on Vader that we see in...Kieron Gillen's Vader comic, right? He's an unimaginative attack dog who rather likes murdering people, and Palpatine recognizes that and uses him accordingly. Because really, a man whose response to every situation he encounters is to decide that he, personally, needs to kill some dudes? Yeah, that guy's got some limitations.

We see this in Rogue One, for that matter. "I would like to personally stab a lot of dudes to death. No, I am not going to take any steps to prevent craft from escaping the ship I'm boarding. That's boring, I have dudes to kill."

3 hours ago, Vapor Eagle said:

Regarding Vader's competence: taking Black Squadron and only Black Squadron to fight at Yavin is of debatable merit.

But you know what's not debatable? Summarily executing your officer corps as a matter of routine whenever they fail and you're nearby is hilariously poor leadership, and use of resources, and etc. If you have so many inept personnel becoming flag officers that murdering them every couple days isn't actually impairing your force's military effectiveness, maybe , just maybe , there's a better way to approach the problem. Like, after you executed your third admiral you could then go murder everyone on every promotion review board that approved the admiral's various new positions. And then go murder some instructors at the academy, because what the ****, might as well start at the source eh? Plus, aren't there like thousands of star destroyers? Even a serial killer as prolific as Vader in Ep. V won't make a dent in the incompetents that (he believes) are scattered throughout the fleet.

Which is why I rather like the take on Vader that we see in...Kieron Gillen's Vader comic, right? He's an unimaginative attack dog who rather likes murdering people, and Palpatine recognizes that and uses him accordingly. Because really, a man whose response to every situation he encounters is to decide that he, personally, needs to kill some dudes? Yeah, that guy's got some limitations.

We see this in Rogue One, for that matter. "I would like to personally stab a lot of dudes to death. No, I am not going to take any steps to prevent craft from escaping the ship I'm boarding. That's boring, I have dudes to kill."

Ahahaha! Best post of this thread! Thank you sir!

On 7/4/2018 at 12:57 PM, Commander Kaine said:

(But according to you, tie fighters simultaneously are and are not a threat to xwings)

I guess we could make a new X-Wing threat scale, to keep up:

1 X-Wing > -6 Tie Fighters

1 X-Wing < 1 Black Squadron Pilot

1 X-Wing > 1 Star Destroyer

So if I do my math correctly, it would take 13 X-Wing to take down one Star Destroyer with 72 Tie Fighters.

On 7/4/2018 at 3:41 AM, Woobyluv said:

The EU is better than the Disney trash that has been produced thus far (Rogue One being an exception). It had its problems, but tells a better story and follows continuity better (the main story line books I'm talking about now). The Disney trash is total alternate universe stuff.

Which books are considered "the main story line"?

10 hours ago, Vapor Eagle said:

Regarding Vader's competence: taking Black Squadron and only Black Squadron to fight at Yavin is of debatable merit.

But you know what's not debatable? Summarily executing your officer corps as a matter of routine whenever they fail and you're nearby is hilariously poor leadership, and use of resources, and etc. If you have so many inept personnel becoming flag officers that murdering them every couple days isn't actually impairing your force's military effectiveness, maybe , just maybe , there's a better way to approach the problem. Like, after you executed your third admiral you could then go murder everyone on every promotion review board that approved the admiral's various new positions. And then go murder some instructors at the academy, because what the ****, might as well start at the source eh? Plus, aren't there like thousands of star destroyers? Even a serial killer as prolific as Vader in Ep. V won't make a dent in the incompetents that (he believes) are scattered throughout the fleet.

Which is why I rather like the take on Vader that we see in...Kieron Gillen's Vader comic, right? He's an unimaginative attack dog who rather likes murdering people, and Palpatine recognizes that and uses him accordingly. Because really, a man whose response to every situation he encounters is to decide that he, personally, needs to kill some dudes? Yeah, that guy's got some limitations.

We see this in Rogue One, for that matter. "I would like to personally stab a lot of dudes to death. No, I am not going to take any steps to prevent craft from escaping the ship I'm boarding. That's boring, I have dudes to kill."

You can add jumping his ISD in the middle of the Rebel fleet in Rogue One to that list as well.

Given that Holdo's thing in Rogue One is canon, Vader risked an entire ISD being ripped apart by some random Rebel freighter entering hyperspace just so he can get to stabby part faster.

To be fair, impulsive and violent have been two of Anakin's defining traits ever since he was a teen. Obi-Wan was the voice of reason usually.

On 7/5/2018 at 1:55 AM, Red Castle said:

Alright, I think that argument went far enough to show my point. When you love something, like you clearly love the OT as much as I do, you'll take the time to try and justify the errors in it as if they were not errors in the first place (mental gymnastic I think it has been called earlier), whereas if you hate a movie, like you clearly hate TLJ and everything in it, you'll easily dismiss it as stupidity and plot holes that break immersion.

This... is an inherently biased statement, based around the assumption that I love the OT and hate the sequels, along with the assumption that I'm simply making an impassioned argument about a faction I care about. It seems you're not analysing your own arguments; observe the insults you've levelled at me, and see who's letting their fandom get the better of them. Perhaps instead of again attacking me as an individual, you should change your arguments address the points I make.

On 7/5/2018 at 1:55 AM, Red Castle said:

Now, if this scene was part of TLJ, I'm pretty sure that you would have jump on the occasion to use it to show how bad and stupid the First Order really is and would probably have laughed at the idea that there was in fact fighter there, you just can't see them. But the truth is, there was no fighters simply because it serves the story to not have any fighters ready to intercept the transport. The transport had to escape and well, having fighters there ready to intercept would have prevented it.

See, the transport didn't have to escape - and that's a key part of this. That transport has no plot armour whatsoever, and nothing in the plot wants it to be destroyed either. It was a throwaway shot that looked pretty sweet and expressed the 'flee Hoth' idea to the audience. So any ideas that explain away the suspicious lack of TIE fighters are equally inconsequential. Compare this to the utterly crucial Hux/dreadnought scene.

The screenwriters wanted to express Poe's traits to new audience members and develop him for old ones in a combat situation. Poe can't get killed and he can't get hurt (which would interfere with later plot), so the plot-armour is strong with him. Thus, he is capable of destroying everything necessary with ease, while Hux bumbles around being fooled by first year academy tactics. Trying to excuse this as anything except a plot-armoured scene is folly - because that's exactly what it was. The screenwriters weren't trying to get things to make sense, they just wanted a generic action scene.

While all of Tarkin's scenes could also be perceived as plot-armoured, there are some serious caveats.

1. The Empire had just won a major fleet battle at Scariff against the alliance which, given their excellent spy nets, would tell them that the rebels had a tiny fighter force left at the ready.
2. The Empire had a battlestation which was, by all accounts, unbeatable in battle.
3. Tarkin's character has been developed since the Clone Wars (through currently canon Clone Wars episodes and novels) to be politically exceptional, but militarily merely above average, and incredibly arrogant and proud.

With all of this thrown together (and significant hints dropped during the original film to each of them), it's entirey understandable that Tarkin took the course of action he did. Filling in small gaps is no more blind fan loyalty that explaining blue milk.

On 7/5/2018 at 2:57 AM, Commander Kaine said:

The OT has mistakes and plot holes. It's fine if you like it regardless. But denying their existence is not really defensible. If at any point during your argument you refer to an outside (not in the movies) source to explain something, the movie isn't doing its job right.

This includes things like the reasons behind a random officer's actions. You don't know why they notified Tarkin the way they did. And you don't know the the extent of imperial awareness of the Flaw.

No doubt. The biggest is how on earth Vader never returned to his home planet in search of closure with his old life (probably by killing his family, who knows though). But the points that I have addressed in this thread aren't plot holes.

On 7/5/2018 at 2:57 AM, Commander Kaine said:

But what really shows you your bias, is your repeated attempts at explaining why it makes sense to leave the rebel fighters to be.

There IS a danger.

Even if there wasn't, there is no reason to leave any fighter getting in free shots against your valuable asset. (Not to even mention the old EU capabilities of protontorpedoes... these are basically nuclear warheads.)

Blowing up the rebel base ain't gonna make the fighters go away.

First, assume that the empire is a competent fighting force - not genius, just competent. If they are, their first consideration of the tactical ability of the Death Star is "what could hurt it, either in an immediate or attrition warfare manner?". If the answer had been "any starfighter at all" they would have prescribed an escort fleet or tighter defence system to account for the obvious tactic of fighter-based attacks. That they didn't makes it clear that any starfighter attack on the Death Star will ultimately leave rebels more out of pocket than the empire.

Old EU proton torpedoes were hardly huclear warheads, though they were certainly stronger than the conventional explosives of today. Baradium is the closest fissile parody element in the star wars universe, best known for use in EU thermal detonators. Their effect in the Star by Star EU novel makes it very clear that it's a nuclear-esque material. As for pure radiation bombs, those are different again, as shown in Outbound Flight , although they were Chiss weapons, so it's less clear there where the boundary is. At any rate, proton torpedoes are at best high yield conventional explosives. A full volley of 12 perfectly timed proton torps at a single point on a VSD's hull could penetrate the shields and do damage in the EU, but no less.

Alright, Alderaan (the primary financial backer of the rebellion is dead), every unified leader of the rebellion is dead, along with all the strategists, ground support crew and transport pilots responsible for resupplying fighters. There's a warrant out with a ten thousand credit reward for any information leading to the capture of a Rebellion-controlled X-wing galaxy wide, so no refuelling through conventional means. All the smugglers have crawled back into their holes, so no getting munitions through illicit means. The cartels are going to steal anything you bring to them for repairs, given how weak you are. Even if the full Red Squadron had survived, they're too few in number to raid a supply base and steal what they need. They'll have no intel whatsoever on where effective and vulnerable targets are. How, exactly, are those fighters going to remain an effective fighting force?

On 7/5/2018 at 2:57 AM, Commander Kaine said:

Your point about turbolaser turrets is also strange. First of all, these are more analogous to the heavy batteries navy ships have, but more importantly, TIEs are harder to hit, therefore harder to destroy. Do I really have to explain the tactical benefits of mobility? A large force of scrambled fighters (no doubt available to the death star) would stop the attack with little to no losses. (But according to you, tie fighters simultaneously are and are not a threat to xwings)

But finally... Tarkin being arrogant is not an excuse. That (and similar issues) are precisely the reason the empire is incompetent. They make mistakes all the time.

I'd guarantee that at least 24 TIE fighters would die in a massed attack. Why? Because every ship is equipped with proton torpedoes! Which are proven to be outrageously effective against starfighters, especially unshielded ones. The (mostly) highly experienced pilots of the rebellion might even rally together and take out a whole flight or so before the last one falls. That's an enormous loss, when just destroying the rebel base will already accomplish the goal of grounding the fighters forever. Even if those turrets are very pricy, the benefits of highly agile superiority aircraft also come with a drastically increased cost. I haven't counted the turrets destroyed , but I doubt its more than 10, so a tiny loss.

You see though? Tarkin was never a military man first. He used the military to further a political career. Krennic was the same, as was most of the higher command of the military. That's identical to the real world. If nothing else, the tactical 'blunders' of the Empire are to the FO as Thrawn is to Jar Jar.

8 hours ago, Red Castle said:

I guess we could make a new X-Wing threat scale, to keep up:

1 X-Wing > -6 Tie Fighters

1 X-Wing < 1 Black Squadron Pilot

1 X-Wing > 1 Star Destroyer

So if I do my math correctly, it would take 13 X-Wing to take down one Star Destroyer with 72 Tie Fighters.

You missed an important part of the equation.

1 Rogue Squadron X-Wing > 6 TIE Fighters

12 Rogue Squadron X-Wings > 1 ISD

1 ISD == 72 TIE Fighters

1 Rogue Squadron X-wing < 1 Swamp.

So you see, for every Rogue squadron X-wing that crashes into a swamp, an ISD is destroyed, along with its full TIE complement. It gets messy though because the first three get stuck in a loop.

1 hour ago, LordBlades said:

You can add jumping his ISD in the middle of the Rebel fleet in Rogue One to that list as well.

I think that's more a characteristic of Anakin/Vader's fighting stlye than an aggressive tactical blunder. He's always been the 'in your face' type of fighter, especially in space. The Holdo thing is stupid, and I'm personally ignoring it entirely, since it breaks the universe in so many ways.

6 hours ago, JJ48 said:

Which books are considered "the main story line"?

Probably the more popular trilogies and so forth. The classic Thrawn books by Zahn ( Outbound Flight to Vision of the Future ), the Rogue Squadron novel series, *shudder* The New Jedi Order series, Fate of The Jedi series and so on. A coule standalone books are also very solid reads - mostly those immediately before or after movies ( Labyrinth of Evil , as an example). All in my opinion, of course.

4 minutes ago, Astech said:

No doubt. The biggest is how on earth Vader never returned to his home planet in search of closure with his old life (probably by killing his family, who knows though). But the points that I have addressed in this thread aren't plot holes.

Interestingly in the new Vader comics he is back on Tatooine just post episode IV (generally being aggressive and intimidating at Jabba and casually brutalizing some sandpeople). Sadly too late, of course.

9 minutes ago, Astech said:

I think that's more a characteristic of Anakin/Vader's fighting stlye than an aggressive tactical blunder. He's always been the 'in your face' type of fighter, especially in space. The Holdo thing is stupid, and I'm personally ignoring it entirely, since it breaks the universe in so many ways.

Even ignoring the Hold thing, despite it being Canon (I fully agree it s beyond stupid and lore breaking), what Vader did is still incredibly risky.

The Thrawn trilogy touches on Thrawn using interdicțors to pull his own ships out of Hyperspace at precise positions, because that is otherwise impossible. What Vader tried could have easily resulting into him over shooting the entire battle.

21 minutes ago, LordBlades said:

Even ignoring the Hold thing, despite it being Canon (I fully agree it s beyond stupid and lore breaking), what Vader did is still incredibly risky.

The Thrawn trilogy touches on Thrawn using interdicțors to pull his own ships out of Hyperspace at precise positions, because that is otherwise impossible. What Vader tried could have easily resulting into him over shooting the entire battle.

In fairness, maybe he wasn't supposed to arrive that close. It wouldn't have been (at this point Captain) Ozzel in command, would it? He did have a habit of over-estimating jump exit.....

26 minutes ago, LordBlades said:

Even ignoring the Hold thing, despite it being Canon (I fully agree it s beyond stupid and lore breaking), what Vader did is still incredibly risky.

The Thrawn trilogy touches on Thrawn using interdicț ors to pull his own ships out of Hyperspace at precise positions, because that is otherwise impossible. What Vader tried could have easily resulting into him over shooting the entire battle.

4 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

In fairness, maybe he wasn't supposed to arrive that close. It wouldn't have been (at this point Captain) Ozzel in command, would it? He did have a habit of over-estimating jump exit.....

Part of Thrawn's original precision jump strategy was using the superior technology of Chiss hyperdrives. After that was no longer available in deep space battle, he approximated gravity wells with interdictors. At Scariff, Vader had access to the natural gravity well of the planet itself, which would have been well documented by Imperials.

So Vader could have intentionally jumped in like that in the knowledge that his positioning would be down to the inch, given he had control of all the variables.

13 hours ago, JJ48 said:

Which books are considered "the main story line"?

The inside covers has a list and a chart that shows it.