As it stands, it’s like using a tactical nuke on a battleship. If the DS beam could cause an blast in empty space, a shot right into the center of the Rebel fleet would wipe them out, or severely cripple the ships furthest away, but the movie would also be over. 😉
Yeah, you’re right. It does serve the drama well, even if the scale annoys me. Maybe Adywan could do an edit with a skinnier beam ha ha!