Star Wars: in defense of the exhaust ports on the death star

[CapeCodRPGer]

He makes some good points

NSFW languge. Good stuff.

[cmastah]

I think I remember reading a joke reply from the engineer that went over so many other issues as well:

1. Why are the death star's numerous pilots so inept they can't keep the rebel's fighters away.
2. The very guys who destroyed the death star were IN the death star, the department who inherited this problem failed their job which LED to this catastrophe.

It was a lengthy post and I can't remember the rest.

It does raise the question though of why there wasn't something IN the exhaust port to take the hit. A grating would've stopped the effectiveness of the attack immediately, walkways that crisscrossed through the levels (sure, folks will get vaporized, but folks on walkway vs whole death star is still a small number).

[Avatar-1]

I can't watch that youtube clip because I'm at work, but at seeing "he makes some good points", I'm convinced it's a con rather than an argument

[I'm Hiding In Your Closet]

I watched it. It isn't. Points were made. They were good.

[UnArcaneElection]

^No con there, just pointy-haired boss problems (as you see towards the end).

Edit: Closet-Ninja'd!

[Aaron Bitman]

Well... not quite ALL the points were so good.

Presumably, a good enough shot - even one made by a non-Jedi - would have done the trick, or the rebels wouldn't have attempted the battle. (How, exactly, the torpedo could curve like that is, of course, a good question.) Maybe the gas leaving the exhaust port wasn't strong enough to expel a torpedo, assuming that the port even WAS expelling gas at the time, as it might not have needed to do so all the time.

And is it really so suspicious that Anakin disappeared? ALL the Jedi and Padawans got wiped out, or disappeared, at that time. For all anyone knows, Vader could be one of those other Jedi who, in the official history, died.

[GM Rednal]

"A torpedo would have to travel about eighty kilometers to reach the interior of the station, and our ships fight so close to one another that we can SEE the pilots. Torpedoes probably don't even have that much fuel, and let's not forget the movement of the station going, like, five feet would probably result in the torpedo hitting a wall and exploding!"

But that's logic. I try to enjoy movies for what they are. XD

[Krensky]

Maybe the briefing graphic was wrong. I mean it was for a bunch of ignorant farm boys. Maybe this was the small moon giant battle station equivalent of shoving a potato up a tail pipe?

[Charles Scholz]

They called them torpedoes, but I see them more like guided smart missiles. If the aim is true it will curve down to enter the port.

Once in the shaft, their shape prevented the tip of the nose from striking the sides. Since the detonating pin is in the tip of the nose it would not hit anything until it reached the bottom.

As for fuel, 2 theories:
1) Very efficient engines. Just look at how far the x- and y-wing fighters flew to reach the Death Star.
2) If it did run out of fuel, Newtons Law states that once an object is in motion, it will stay in motion unless something else effects it. The Empire would not have wasted any gravity generators in an exhaust port.
Thus it would keep going straight until it hit bottom and detonated.

[Vic Wertz]

Krensky wrote:

Maybe the briefing graphic was wrong.

No doubt about that—the superlaser is on the equator!

[Sissyl]

See how the polar regions have far more dots than the rest of it? Yeah. That is why you never trust a Mercator projection. Especially one that has been spherized.