Star Wars economics

[fbhjr]

When we drove down to Florida last month palusbuteo and I had a
long talk about the economics of Star Destroyers from the Star Wars movies.
If you actually look at how well they do their job in the movies, they are
abysmal. Movie after movie, they can’t stop smaller ships from zipping
past them and going where they want. And, at least once a bunch of those
smaller ships take out the big ones by ganging up on it.
Clearly the money spent on a Star Destroyer would be much better spent on
buying a fleet of those little ships that can hop across the galaxy in a
short time on their own.

Of course the make up of the fleet has more to do with the Emperor and his
“let’s be big an scary” mode of operation than actual efficiency. That’s a
political decision, not economic.

Along these lines, I’ve also been wondering: who pays the Jedi Knights?

I’m sure they’ve got some vow of poverty and only own their lightsaber and
the robes on their backs.
But, that temple is huge! And, in prime real estate of the capitol!
They’ve got to heat it, keep the lights on, feed the Jedi, buy them star
ships, etc.

So, who pays for all that?

The Jedi seem to take orders from the Senate, so maybe they’re the ones who
foot the bills?

That’s an interesting implication.
The Galactic Senate has a private army of made up of a religious order of
super soldiers on retainer to “keep the peace”.

I can see why the Emperor’s pitch to people that an arrangement like that
is bad could be accepted.

Comments

[uawildcatgrl.livejournal.com]

Yes, but if you have all of these little ships flipping about space...where are you going to refuel them? Where are you going to park them when you need a nap???

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

Since they can pop across the galaxy in a short time, go home to fuel and rest.

[uawildcatgrl.livejournal.com]

Oh come on...how many times did those injured vipers (or even non injured ones) have to limp on to the battlestar galactica?! It's not always feasible to go home!

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

Those ships work on different principals.

[uawildcatgrl.livejournal.com]

Well yeah...Vipers are far more bad ass!

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

The new ones.
Those ones from the 70s were death traps!

[ravena-kade.livejournal.com]

So the Jedi are funded by taxes raised by the Senate. Hmmmm...

[brickhousewench.livejournal.com]

See, I always wondered where they got all the raw materials to assemble a Death Star so quickly. I mean, how the hell big must their infrastructure be to make not one, but TWO of those things and still be able to produce all the other stuff that people need. The steel mills! The plastics factories! Wow, they must have a lot of them in the Empire.

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

And, DS 2 must have been started years before DS1 was destroyed...

[palusbuteo.livejournal.com]

Maybe. Maybe DS1 was able to be completed and operational faster than DS2, which obviously had some upgrades. Why else was there a sudden rush to complete DS2, to the point where the Emperor himself had to go out of his way to "motivate" slacking Emperial construction crews to get their asses in gear and double their efforts. Where maybe there was a delay in supply and work schedule that had to be diverted and devoted to hunting down the Rebel base(s), as they clearly were chasing the Rebellion all across the Galaxy for some time before finding it on the Hoth system.

And, talk about hasty living...They didn't seem to be on Hoth for very long and then had to pack up and bug out really fast when the Empire did finally show up.

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

It was much bigger than DS1, so maybe some components were used, but even if you got 100% of it you'd still be very short for DS2.

And, the Emperor wasn't there to motivate them. He was there to get Luke.

[palusbuteo.livejournal.com]

It was larger? Huh, I seemed to have missed that

Oops, Vader not Palpy was sent to oversee the completion.

[brickhousewench.livejournal.com]

Who NEEDS two Death Stars? How many planets can you possibly need to obliterate? (Because if you blow up too many, there goes your power base!)

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

It's a big galaxy?

[palusbuteo.livejournal.com]

Heh. Private state funded gendarme of a religious like order. HMMM wonder where we've heard that before. :D

Unfortunately we never got much farther on our discussion of SW vehicles and space ship designs. Something like the AT-AT is
baffling, it's able to withstand full-on attacks from "blasters" until it's tipped over or tripped, then it explodes in fantastically huge ways
with a short burst; or how an explosion from a hand-held thermal detonator makes the explosion move forward into the cockpit-head
and make that explode in spectacular fashion. No wonder General Veers had that anxious look on his face as he approached
the Rebel trenches....He was riding on a fricken explosion waiting to happen

I've always wondered/held that DS 1 may not have been entirely destroyed, yeah we all saw a spectacular explosion but
there had to have been some kind of remnants to be salvaged and re-built. BUT, it could just as well be there was more than one.
Going on the strategy that individual planets were to fear that station showing up in orbit one day and ka-blooey.

Another thing that always baffled me with the DS's, they must have hundreds of docking bays chock full of TIE Fighters and Interceptors.
If they were to learn anything from DS1, they SHOULD then expect smaller craft to be a damn threat!

Now, I understand with DS1 and the Falcon that Vader wanted them to escape with the tracking device, but when the DS2 is attacked
there should have been HUNDREDS of TIE's in action. Or maybe the Empire IS Stupid enough to wait for every last panel to be installed
and every inch of new paint dried, every inch of black glass polished before getting TIE's put in the docks.
(although I'm sure many of the docks were for transport and construction ships coming in with supplies)

Back on Star Destroyers, well, not only are they pretty ineffective, we saw how vulnerable and ineffective the Super Star Destroyer was.
Knock out the bridge deflector shields and then the bridge, and wha-boom, you drive a gigantic spacecraft into the surface of the Death Star.
Duuuude, WTF?!

Don't they have Battle bridges on those things? Dammit, Star Trek ships had battle-bridges!

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

It is also very strange that 6 star destroyers only had 1 ATAT each.
You'd think that taking out the rebel base they'd want to give it all they've got. What they had wasn't much.

[palusbuteo.livejournal.com]

But if it's a Planetary surface assault, a lot of AT-AT's are needed to cover a LOT of ground, even if they're deployed fairly close to the base (which those 6 were), they appear to have been looking specifically for that Generator

...Maybe it's one of those deals where since it was Veer's ship (which Vader was on) that initially found the base, Vader made them do all the work...Sort of a "you made the bed now you lie in it don't fail me again again"

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

While he does say "General Veers, prepare your men for a ground assault" there doesn't seem to be any of that "only your men and do it or die" he gives the admiral...

[palusbuteo.livejournal.com]

true true

and there was the other SD that took the Ion cannon hits, the two others that tried to corner the Falcon seemed to be far out, so maybe playing catchup, since noone was able to catch any transports or X-wing escorts

[endlessblush.livejournal.com]

You're hurting my brain Frank - going to have to think about all of this (and what i've read in comments) and get back to you. :)

[evrgreen.livejournal.com]

Though there are numerous design issues I have with many of Lucas' ships, I basically equate the Star Destroyers to one of our modern aircraft carriers - capable of multiple types of missions, planetary bombardment, troop invasion/ground war with combat "marines", carrying numerous types of smaller fighter/bomber ships, capable of ship-to-ship battle, and serving as a base for refueling, repair, etc.

Our modern aircraft carriers are the fastest surface warships on the planet. Their actually top speed is classified. Some friends of mine who were in the Navy were deployed on destroyers, which they thought were pretty fast at about 35 knots top/flank speed. They worked in the radar room and observed a gigantic blip moving past them at "ludicrous speed" - the equipment actually measured it as more than 45 knots, perhaps 50. They thought it was impossible and reported to the commanding officer who told them it was simply CVN _____________ en route to the Med from Virginia and that her captain was told to get there without lollygagging.
The thought of something the length of the empire state building, massing over 100,000 tons and able to move fast enough through water to match your speed on a typical highway is pretty damn impressive - and scary if it is coming for you!

As for DeathStars, well, sometimes you just have to bring your own planet along with you when you are conquering the galaxy.

I cannot imagine the budget deficit the Empire had to run to fund the building of all that stuff. Makes the Jedi seem like National Public Radio in comparison..