Two questions about the Battle of Yavin — Page 2

These are my answers to the three questions:

1) If the Rebels decided to evacuate, assuming when this was as the Death Star was approaching Yavin, TIE fighters would've been sent to the area. Even if this was before the DS's approach, they would've probably had some TIEs stationed nearby (like on a neighbouring planet)  that could've been alerted to the en-masse Rebel evacuation (keeping in mind, through tracking the Falcon the Empire may have had a rough idea where the rebels were going before they reached Yavin) 

The TIEs could've picked off most of the Rebel fighters easily. The reason why the DS was destroyed was that the Empire weren't prepared for a small-scale assault. But they would be prepared quickly if the Rebels were not attempting to destroy the station.  The TIEs could've taken out a lot of X-wings by themselves when you consider that they destroyed most of the Y-wings and X-wings during the battle.

Maybe when they analysed the data, the Rebels realised it was better to just stay behind and bring a straight fight.

2) Yavin being a gas giant, could still protect the moon regardless of how little solid ground is there (not quite sure as science isn't my strong point) but the thick gas could've caused the beeam to refract and fire off at an angle, missing the moon and the base...as I said, I'm not sure on the scientif accuracy, but hell spaceships wouldn't make a huge "Kaboom" sound in a vaccum.

3) I agree that Han, who at the time was not quite sold on being in the Rebellion, just didn't want his ship tampered with.

Those are my answers. Probably not very solid.

cap said:

2) The Death Star spends 30 minutes orbiting the planet to get a shot at the moon.  Wouldn’t it be a lot faster to just blast the planet? 

 I don't know of any EU or scientific explanation offered before, but it seems to me there is overwhelming evidence that the Death Star can't just blow up Yavin.

The fact they don't is the evidence, and it seems perfectly satisfying to me. Who needs more? Would "Star Wars" have been a better film somehow with the following exchange?

GOON: Sir, Rebel base is 30 minutes away.

TARKIN: Rubbish. Just blow up the planet that we're going around.

GOON: No can do Moffy. It's a gas giant, and too big, and the resultant shockwave would damage the Death Star, and it lacks a solid core to aim the laser at, and a variety of other technobabble. Really, it's all kind of self-evident.

TARKIN: Oh very well. I'll be in the canteen.

cap said:

1) Why don’t the rebels evacuate the base just in case?  A skeleton crew would have to remain behind to coordinate the attack on the Death Star, but they can do that from a ship, and everybody else can be getting the hell out of Dodge at light speed, leaving the Death Star nothing to destroy but an empty base.

 

2) The Death Star spends 30 minutes orbiting the planet to get a shot at the moon.  Wouldn’t it be a lot faster to just blast the planet?  Judging by the debris and shock wave resulting from the destruction of Alderaan (in the SE and later editions), the explosion almost certainly would take out the moon.  Even if it doesn’t, it would leave the Death Star with an open shot at the moon.  At the very least, the moon would be rendered uninhabitable and the base useless; people and ships might have a chance to get away, but they should be gone already anyway, especially if you give them an extra 30 minutes to evacuate while you circle the planet.

And talk about an “effective demonstration”!  It would say, “If you harbor Rebels in your system, you’re dead, no questions asked, so you better be vigilant about not letting Rebels use your system.”

You're looking for logic in Star wars. Logic and star wars don't go together.

cap said:

JarHead413 said:

I don’t know how much time the DS needs between shots.  Might be a day to recharge that thing

That certainly was not the case in ROTJ, but who knows, maybe technology advanced in four years from “takes a day to recharge” to “takes moments to recharge even when the darn thing is only halfway built.”  True, this is a universe that had no significant technological development for thousands of years, but you never know.

Death Star 1 took 1 day to recharge Death star II took 3 minutes

It’s kinda pointless responding to a poster who hasn’t been around since 2014 in a thread which has been dead since 2009, y’know.