Air Force Officer Says Death Star Was a Bad Investment

[Frostbite3789]

I feel like this is the best use of tax money since the CDC released those zombie survival tips.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

-snip-

But wouldn't putting a moon-sized object around a planet that didn't have one really mess up the tides? It didn't matter for Alderaan, but it seems like it would be a problem if people were planning on colonizing.

I had forgotten about The Tides...and if shit really went south the inhabitants of the new world could potentially start worshiping the Death Star, especially if they were born on-world instead of on the station and didn't really understand what it was. It would make for some great TV on board the station though which is probably why they wouldn't be eager to enlighten the planet-born. As for the tides though...there's also weather patterns to think about. It could be that with Death Star levels of technology, you would know how to change those weather patterns to benefit life on that world (for the time being anyway, once the DS is gone everything goes back to normal)

-snip-

I think that would be a fantastic TV Show, instead of Star Trek just have the Death Star flying about.....some Alien species bitching about violating their space?.........

"You may fire when ready."

It would be amazing, make it so!

I'd watch that. Sounds better than Clone Wars but that show seems like it would be pretty easy to top.

 

[GonzoGamer]

However, I would think that we sould get more use out of it...the US would at least.
The empire only blew up one planet with the damn thing.

 

[Tharwen]

I have a question. Why did the death star have a vent if its in space?

To make room for the bombs, obviously.

 

[ChillShark]

The Death Star was a symbol! Sure they could have used the money more economically, but it wouldn't have had the same impact as a moon sized planet destroyer.

 

[MetalGenocide]

This is the second person in their military with a sense of humor I see of late.

Here's some internets.

 

[Strixvaliano]

With the state of the economy I don't think I would listen to anything my country says about what is a bad investment.

The death star wouldn't have been such a bad investment if they just protected the thermal exhaust ports better or even redesigned them.

 

[Baldr]

Now I understand why we are losing, we are trying to send astromech droids to do a Death Star's job.

Anyways, droid don't always work either... Poor Trade Federation.

 

[Asuka Soryu]

The Death Stars flaw was someone put a swamp rat sized hole where if you shoot a missile into it, the whole bloody thing goes up.

Imagine if they didn't have such a thing. Death Star would've owned them.

 

[Mr.Squishy]

Pft, the death star would have been perfect if not for some fucking momma's boy chosen one with a contrived Deus Ex Machina (The force) and plot armor.
Yes, I would've liked to see vader blow the whiny little cad out of the non-existant space skies.

 

[megs1120]

Pft, the death star would have been perfect if not for some fucking momma's boy chosen one with a contrived Deus Ex Machina (The force) and plot armor.
Yes, I would've liked to see vader blow the whiny little cad out of the non-existant space skies.

I thought you were talking about Vader until you said Vader should kill him.

Vader took Luke's whiny self-pity and cranked it up to 11.

 

[ResonanceSD]

bazinga

I love how the US has all this money to spend on useless reports.

 

[Rakor]

You know what an astromech droid doesn't have? A planet destroying laser.

Nuff said.

Granted, one could probably use the resources for one deathstar to make enough battleships to carpet bomb planets instead, making the inevitable planet raping for resources a bit easier.

Still, planet destroying laser makes a big statement.

 

[Random berk]

He discusses the futility of spending tons of military money on unproven technology with shoddy field records, and the trouble inherent in making military hardware so specialized that only a Sith Lord could operate it.

F22/35/Super Carrier dig anyone? >

That was actually my first thought as well haha. It's hard to believe the article (even though its about a fictional topic) when the united states government has spent so much money on impractical fighter jets.

As a service member, I can tell you that fighter jets do have their uses. But I'm no pilot, so I can't detail what those uses may or may not be.

70 years ago, planes were mainly used when you wanted to expend great numbers of your own people's lives to kill a bunch of civilians in your neighbouring country. Now, whenever a military leader decides that an enemy military target on the other side of the world should cease to exist, he sends a fighter jet. Isn't that the basic idea these days?

 

[Thaluikhain]

I think The Death Star would be a much more practical investment if it was used as a deep-space exploration vessel instead of a mobile planet-destroying monstrosity.

I mean, think about it. It can travel through the Galaxy, holding years worth of rations and enough people to populate any suitable planet while the Deathstar helpfully orbits said planet to keep an eye on things. Man can travel pretty freely from Earth to the Moon so taking a moon-sized space station and sending it to any given Earth-like planet would be a pretty safe bet I'd think. You know, once we can get our own version of FTL travel or, finish our own version of the Hyper-Drive.

It would still be expensive as hell but using the station as an exploration vessel could potentially pay off in a HUGE way.

Um...no. It might be small for a moon, but unbelievably huge compared to a spaceship. Even the impractically large Super Star Destroyer would be less than a trillionth its size. A trillion super Star Destroyers (ok, i'd go for regular star destroyers, and they are too big themselves) would be a much better investment than one big ship.

Though, why bother building one? Why not just build the engines on an existing moon and fly it around if you want?

 

[5mj7R7yf4Dwr3gdZyyu9PeGNwYjlNrjzuh3iTXQG]

Actually the Death Star Superlaser was to be used mostly for civilian mining efforts to crack planets open and get to the fluffy mineral center. On occasion they'd blast a Rebel holdout, a pirate outpost or a revolting colony as a video op to reassure that the Empire was on top of things (and to keep dissenters from getting frisky), but mostly it was for planet-sized mining demolitions.

I feel like this is the best use of tax money since the CDC released those zombie survival tips.

The survival guidlines for outlasting a zombie outbreak are usually helpful in other kinds of disasters. Google the Zombie Squad, sometime.

238U.

 

[cthulhlu]

as i understand it, building the death star made the rebalion go from a bunch of bored rich kids to full blown galactic revolution.
if palpatine had never built/fired the thing starwars would never have happaned.

 

[Clonekiller]

So... Buy jet plains instead of a giant tank. Sure, that makes sense to me.

 

[Mrsoupcup]

What I don't get is why the Sith don't just take the cannon bits right out of the Death Star and make it a Destroyer. Better yet don't, Kotor showed us a moderately large fleet can wipe out almost all life on a planet and still leave you with a planet to capture.

Then again, I suppose it's supposed to be like that, the quantity vs quantity scenario or brute vs precision.

(Aka Communism vs Capitalism)