You keep saying this, but WHY is it absurd? Is it so unreasonable to believe that it was so important for the map to not fall into the hands of the enemy, that they decided to use a courier to retrieve that information? Like, maybe the FO could intercept the transmission and then they’d be able to find and kill Luke? Maybe Max von Sydow doesn’t have the capability/expertise to send encrypted transmissions to the Resistance?
Right. I don’t think you understand my point, and that’s my fault for not being more clear. Allow me illustrate with an example:
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There is some piece of intelligence information President Obama needs. The information is being held by someone in, say, wherever, let’s say Iraq, just for the sake of the discussion.
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How do you get the information? Well, you first consider some sort of encrypted electronic transmission on a secure channel. But let’s suppose for the sake of the discussion that that’s not possible, for whatever reason.
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President Obama does not want our enemies to find out we’re coming to get this information, or, for that matter, that the guy in Iraq even has it.
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So now President Obama needs to send someone to retrieve the information. So…would he send his best F-16 fighter pilot in an F-16, wearing an American F-16 flight suit?!? No! Of course not! He’d send some intelligence operative under deep cover. Now granted, fine, I get that maybe Poe changed his clothes before going to Von Sydow…but him flying there in an X-Wing alone is silly. An X-Wing would stick out like a sore thumb. Instead, someone would be quietly sent, someone totally unassuming and average looking, probably arriving on a standard commercial flight. He’d quietly meet with the guy in Iraq in some innocuous place like a bar or bowling alley, receive the information on the sly, and then fly back to Washington on a commercial flight. The enemy would never even know that a courier had been sent and the information had already changed hands and arrived back in Washington.
“The Defense Courier Service (DCS) is established under the United States Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM), and is a global courier network for the expeditious, cost-effective, and secure distribution of highly classified and sensitive material.”
Just FYI: I’ve worked for the Department of Defense for the past 25 years. Trust me, the way I described above is the way it would work. DoD does not dispatch DCS to receive intelligence from secret operatives in foreign locations. That’s not the way it works.