I think the biggest issue with Starkiller Base and its attack is that it doesn’t have a strong impact on any of our main characters, at least that we can see. Finn sees it and his only remark is informing everyone that the First Order was behind it. In the next sentence he’s already moving on. Han just sort of looks at it, and Leia hasn’t been introduced and never mentions it afterwards. Rey, our lead or co-lead character, doesn’t even know about it.

In Star Wars, the Alderaan system destruction had a big emotional impact on Leia and Ben, and all of our main characters were shocked at its destruction when they literally ran into its pulverized remains.

For the Starkiller Base to work, it will need to have an impact on at least one of our main characters in a substantial way. This will probably go into my fanedit ideas thread, but my current idea is to have the base fire right after Poe flies out of the Oscillator, and have the Starkiller firing be what causes the Oscillator to explode. The Hosnian destruction will happen right before Rey taps into the Force as she’s fighting with Kylo, so there could be the sound of ‘a million voices crying out in terror’ as she goes into her trance and is flooded by this terrible surge of darkness. This is what drives her to defeat Kylo in such a righteous rage, and is the best way I’ve found to make the Hosnian destruction mean something to our main character.