23 KiB
[RT] Instruments of Destruction, a Star Wars (original trilogy) fanfic
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Author: u/alexanderwales Time flies like an arrow*
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URL: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11685932/1/Instruments-of-Destruction
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Score: 103
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Created: 2015-12-23T22:57:24
Post:
Comments:
u/alexanderwales [+22] Time flies like an arrow (43 seconds later)
This is a fairly short fic that I wrote mostly as catharsis after coming off a project very similar to the construction of the second Death Star.
u/blazinghand [+7] Chaos Undivided (2 days later)
I'm reminded of a great "corner cut" in a project I worked on once.
u/None [+3] (36 minutes later)
[deleted]
u/alexanderwales [+6] Time flies like an arrow (40 minutes later)
Overtaxed officers. Though I didn't get the brunt of it on this particular occasion, I just watched the trainwreck from relative safety with minimal overtime or stress. My manager, on the other hand, didn't fare so well (but also has not yet been killed, so there's that).
Edit: There was a point a few weeks ago where a co-worker stopped by my office and said, "Hey, did you see the new project plan that _____ sent out? What the fuck is he smoking? Who is he trying to fool?" That project plan became known as the unicorn plan, because it was a complete fantasy. But I put in my 40 hours a week and just went home, because in this case I wasn't one of the people who would get yelled at when the plan met with inevitable failure.
u/dalitt [+4] (2 hours later)
You diagnose the empire's obsession with stupid superweapons as a failing on the part of the emperor--this is possible, but doesn't really jive with our knowledge of him as a canny manipulator and strategist (in the first three movies, at least). My headcanon is that the two deathstars and now were a sop to a strong military-industrial lobby; the flaws in all three were planned obsolescence.
u/alexanderwales [+10] Time flies like an arrow (4 hours later)
I think it's a symptom of Sidious craving power and control, not necessarily stupidity. A dozen Super Star Destroyers are almost certainly a better investment than a single Death Star, especially against a decentralized enemy like the rebels, but the Death Star allows Palpatine to sit on his throne and have the largest personal impact on proceedings. If there were a dozen Super Star Destroyers, Sidious would only be in control of a single one of them. In the context of maximizing personal force projection rather than Imperial strength, the Death Star sort of makes sense.
In Legends canon it sort of makes sense as a weapon against the Yuuzhan Vong, assuming that most of what Sidious was doing was to prepare the galaxy for the invasion that he alone saw coming.
u/Mbnewman19 [+16] (7 hours later)
For context for those not familiar with the theory, here are my ramblings that I wrote while procrastinating studying for the bar:
Was Palpatine really the bad guy? And hear me out before commenting.
I know that when we all think of the Emperor we think of him blasting Luke with Force lightning, ordering massacres, and various other 'dark-side' behavior.
However, if you look at the Palpatine that Timothy Zahn has developed, particularly in the Heir to the Empire series and Outbound Flight, there are strong hints that the Emperor was attempting to unite the galaxy in order to fight the Yuzhan Vong. Thus the instigation of the Clone Wars, with both sides secretly being manipulated by Palpatine, in order to not only consolidate power into his hands, but also to build up a powerful military.
Consider that the Empire was constantly focused on military might, with Star Destroyers, Interdictor cruisers and stormtroopers (albeit the lower quality, Centax-2 clones as opposed to 1st generation Kamino clones). Consider his conversation with Thrawn in Outbound flight, and his sending of Thrawn to the Unknown regions to bring wide areas under his control, and possibly to serve as a buffer to the Yuzhan Vong, an early warning system if you will.
Consider the Death Star. What was the point of such a giant weapon? Fear of a world being destroyed? Sure, but couldn't that be accomplished by an orbital bombardment, turning the planet's surface into slag? Now consider the efficacy of such an instrument against the Yuzuhan Vong worldships. Suddenly such a device makes sense.
But, you'll tell me, he was an evil person! He blew up Alderaan. He ruthlessly put down all rebellions that came his way.He was responsible for the death of millions!
But, I ask you, how many died in the Yuzhan Vong war? Trillions. (According to the Star Wars wiki, 365 Trillion, though i'm not sure where they get that number.) A staggering number of people. And why? Because the New Republic was fractured, weak, and ill-prepared for war. A galaxy-wide democratic process had slowed response times and effective leadership to nearly nil.
Now, imagine if the Rebellion had lost. The Empire was still in charge. An Empire with thousands of Star Destroyers, a cloning system for creating new stormtroopers, who, unlike the Jedi, could fight the Vong just fine (think of how well the Mandalorians did), and a United, cohesive leadership and stratagy, created by such minds as Grand Admiral Thrawn and the 12 other Grand Admirals, with an Emperor able to spread his word with a network of Empire's hands. It would have gone a lot differently. And that is why I believe that Emperor Palpatine was actually the misunderstood hero of the story.
u/None [+4] (3 days later)
What reason is there for him to be so secretive about the vong threat though? It seems that not even his top admirals were aware, meaning they couldn't really prepare effectively. Also it left him as a single point of failure, when he dies the whole plan collapses.
Hell, even if he doesn't want the public at large to know for panic reasons, he could probably have taken Mon mothma, Bail Organa, and the other rebellious senators aside and told them why he was doing it, effectively ending the rebellion before it got off the ground.
u/Mbnewman19 [+3] (4 days later)
Actually, it is fairly clear that Grand Admiral Thrawn was aware of the vong threat, and the purpose of the "mapping mission" that he was supposedly exiled to the Unknown Regions was actually to gather resources and allies to fight the Vong. It is also implied that the Chiss have been fighting some part of the Vong fleet for quite some time.
And since we know that Thrawn was aware of the threat, there is no reason to assume that the other 12 Grand Admirals weren't aware of it as well.
It also helps explain why the Emperor had a hidden redoubt in the Deep Core, as well as his obsession with superweapons, such as the Sun Crusher, Death Star, etc.
As far as pulling Mothma, et al aside, there's no reason to assume that they would believe him, and even if so, honestly the people that formed the Rebellion are the kind of idealists who would be unable to make a cold-hearted logical decision to sacrifice certain rights and people in the short-term in order to create the type of system that could stand up to the Vong.
u/ThatDarnSJDoubleW [+1] (21 hours later)
If he was the misunderstood hero of the story, he could have still been in charge of the Republic and turned it into the Empire without massacring the Jedi - he already had massive amounts of political power from the Clone Wars.
Also, there was no reason to blow up an inhabited planet instead of an uninhabited one.
u/Mbnewman19 [+3] (a day later)
The Jedi Order was widely seen as the peacekeepers of the galaxy. In order to justify building the large army that was necessary, revealing the Jedi as incapable of preserving that peace was essential. Additionally, their very existence was a crutch upon which the galaxy was relying. Removing them forced them to face the fact that they couldn't rely on others and must police themselves, paving the way towards the creation of the Imperial Forces that could have defended the galaxy against the threat of the Yuzuhan Vong. Also, I don't see the Jedi allowing Palpatine to dissolve the Senate, a step necessary to sidestep the bureaucracy and do what was necessary to save the galaxy.
Regarding Alderaan, that was arguably Tarkin's choice, not Palpatine's. Though I'm sure it had an amazing detterence factor, which may have justified it in the long run - thousands of planets got wiped out by the Vong. Destroying one planet to make a point isn't as far-fetched as it initially appears.
u/NotAHeroYet [+1] City of Angles Municipal Government (2 days later)
Massacreing them wasn't neccecary, though. just disable them all seriously enough. or... i'm underestimating the tech, aren't i? Given vader, i likely am.
u/KOTORman [+3] Galactic Empire (5 days later)
There isn't really any way to disable or secure 10,000 Jedi, particularly when one must do it at once before they illegally kill you simply for your religious affiliation.
u/NotAHeroYet [+2] City of Angles Municipal Government (6 days later)
I suppose you're correct.
I suppose any number of atrocities are justifiable, if the alternative is measured in planets lost and won, billions of voices suddenly silenced, or still surviving.
Also, I assumed sith/jedi was more, on the sith's side, for how you use your abilities. sith never felt like a religion, just a philosophy.
u/KOTORman [+1] Galactic Empire (6 days later)
Well, they might not be a theistic religion, but neither is Buddhism (for instance). But they do have a great cultural history, codes and rituals, sacred sites, religious fervor and so on. Certainly, the movies call the Jedi/Sith an "ancient religion."
Related (ROTS novelisation): Mace Windu: "You're a Sith Lord!" Palpatine: "Am I? Even if true, that's hardly a crime. My philosophical outlook is a personal matter. In fact—the last time I read the Constitution, anyway—we have very strict laws against this type of persecution. So I ask you again: what is my alleged crime?"
u/KOTORman [+1] Galactic Empire (5 days later)
The Jedi, as we see, are not willing to tolerate Sith presence. They would rather commit treason against an elected official whose allegiance to the Sith is not illegal than let a single Sith Lord survive.
Furthermore, the Sith and Jedi have been at war for thousands of years. We have the explicitly deathist Jedi who committed genocide against the entire Sith species or whose Jedi Covenant killed all their Padawans simply to prevent a single unknown Padawan among them from becoming a Sith as a vision had told them, or the Sith, whose initial goal was to provide immortality for everyone, restore dead worlds, create life and galactic utopia, and who did tolerate their Jedi brethren before they were exiled. When you have a war, and preemptive action is necessary to prevent the Jedi from illegally murdering you as they had many Sith forebears, and if your side is more in the right to an IMO rationalist view of EU history, then I think Order 66 is quite justified.
u/KOTORman [+1] Galactic Empire (5 days later)
I might also add that combating the Force-nullifying Vong is much helped by the Sith's powers, such as Force lightning capable of killing them, but telekinesis not working on them.
Very reminiscent of Revan forging his own Sith Empire to combat the galaxy-destroying threat of the True Sith.
u/dalitt [+3] (5 hours later)
Fair enough. I also like scruiser's implication in another comment (that this was an efficient way of getting an operational death star that didn't look operational, in order to trap the rebels--without alerting enough staff that the trap leaked to the enemy) as an explanation.
From a story point of view, though, I don't like the idea that Sidious's great flaw was his drive for personal power--in the story, he's defeated not because of this but because of his underestimation of the power of the bond between father and son, or something.
u/scruiser [+2] CYOA (7 hours later)
I also like scruiser's implication in another comment (that this was an efficient way of getting an operational death star that didn't look operational, in order to trap the rebels--without alerting enough staff that the trap leaked to the enemy) as an explanation.
If that was Palpatine's plan, it was kind of risky, unless you assume* EU!wank levels of force-precog or that Palpatine was actually reading between the lines of the reports to guess that the main weapon itself was operational. For example, Tian Jerjerrod could have decided to focus on just making the outer structure complete because that would look the best visually, and then leave the main super laser totally inoperable.
*Edit: wrote awesome instead of assume, fixed
u/alexeyr [+2] Steersman (3 days later)
He could also put people directly reporting to him on it (in secret from the admiral) and give them the resources needed.
u/dalitt [+1] (19 hours later)
Agreed (though I know essentially nothing about the expanded universe). RotJ would have been pretty hilarious if the super laser hadn't been finished yet...
u/KOTORman [+1] Galactic Empire (5 days later)
EU 'levels' of precognition is hardly required. Palpatine within the new canon remains a very powerful precognitive, and this is demonstrated in ROTJ when he foresees Luke's surrender to Vader on Endor, and his line "Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen."
I would assume Palpatine knew the weapon itself was operational, and that part of Jerjerrod's directive was to ensure the weapon was operational in the very early phases.
u/alexeyr [+1] Steersman (3 days later)
If there were a dozen Super Star Destroyers, Sidious would only be in control of a single one of them
And the commanders of the other eleven might get ideas about shooting the one.
u/buckykat [+2] (2 hours later)
isn't it similar to the problems the nazis had with their wunderwaffle?
u/dalitt [+2] (5 hours later)
The wunderwaffe? I just looked it up on wikipedia--it does seem like (aside from the V-1 and V-2) these weapons didn't make it to the battlefield. But was it because they were lobbyist- rather than strategist-driven? Or because of the low success rate of any serious research project, especially over a 6 yr period?
u/None [+2] (3 days later)
I'm inclined to think of it as something like the great leap forward in China. Everyone at every level has an incentive to lie to the level above them (overestimating production, underestimating costs) and there is no external check on the numbers. So the people at the top level may sincerely beleive (as it seems Mao did) that by removing corruption/excellent leadership, etc, they have massively increased productivity, as they have no accurate numbers.
PResumably in /u/alexanderwales scenario the emperor is surrunded by cronies who tell him what they think he wants to hear, and he is comparing thi particular project to a few thousand others that he is paying less attention to, so doesn't realise are falsifying numbers, the Death star guys have the bd luck that theirs are actually being checked.
You could make this into a eneral point about overly heirarchical organisations, everyone can be competent at every level, but if their incentives don't line up with honesty, and the good of the organisation more generally, the system falls apart.
u/blazinghand [+13] Chaos Undivided (3 hours later)
This is really great to read for anyone who has been on a project like this. All the little touches really bring it home, though-- the Death Star "tragedy", the description of sabotage and supply chains, and of course the character's ambition and desperation. It's how you imagine a PM for the Death Star V2 would feel. Not cacklingly evil, just trying to get the job done* on time.
u/scruiser [+10] CYOA (5 hours later)
The ambiguities and open questions you leave in the story (did the emperor realize that he was getting a minimally functional battle station and/or plan for it to be partially incomplete as a trap from the beginning) serve its overall message very well.
u/DaystarEld [+4] Pokémon Professor (4 hours later)
It's hard to imagine the sheer, mind-boggling gall of the screenwriters who first thought that a second Death Star would be built from scratch so shortly after the first was destroyed. Personally, as a kid I just imagined that it was started long before the first was destroyed, since back then we had no idea of the timelines involved. I was using that explanation as my head-canon until now: I rather like this explanation better.
u/rhaps0dy4 [+4] (9 hours later)
Well, you are right that having a Death Star so soon after the old one does not make sense. But the screenwriters don't have gall: they just didn't think of it.
Neither did I think of it, ever, until after reading the fanfic.
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (17 hours later)
True, didn't-think-of-it is usually the most probable culprit when it comes to nonsense in fiction. On top of that, even if someone on the creative team had brought the objection up, they would have probably been overriden for Rule of Cool.
u/NotAHeroYet [+1] City of Angles Municipal Government (2 days later)
Personally, that makes more sense. make a dozen death stars at once, and you make the threat an absolute menace!
u/gryfft [+3] (6 hours later)
s/extent/extant/
Fantastic read and a frighteningly accurate depiction of what it's like to coordinate a project whose goal can be stated by an executive in ten seconds, but which is difficult for reasons that take more than five minutes to explain.
u/ProperAttorney [+2] (27 minutes later)
That was pretty amazing. I hope your project went nothing like this one did!
u/bbrazil [+2] NERV (an hour later)
An enjoyable read.
In truth, the credits and manpower which had been spent on smaller fleets, though few in the Imperial Navy would admit it.
I don't think that 'which' is meant to be there.
u/alexanderwales [+1] Time flies like an arrow (3 hours later)
Fixed that typo, thanks!
u/Nevereatcars [+2] The Greatest Is Behind (2 days later)
The Executor, first of the Executor-class Super Star Destroyers, had been built in four months. Every ship after that had taken ten months.
Reverse these numbers?
u/alexanderwales [+8] Time flies like an arrow (2 days later)
The idea is that building an Executor-class Super Star Destroyer takes about ten months if you're doing things optimally, but if you want to break the backs of everyone involved and be a weasel about what "complete" means you can get it done in four months.
Canonically, the original Executor was a rush job following the destruction of the first Death Star because the Empire needed to push forward its strategy of "terror styling". The Executor was the biggest ship in the known galaxy at the time of its construction for exactly that purpose.
So the timetable for the first of the Executor-class gets shifted up dramatically, resources are devoted to getting it done as soon as possible, and the ten month timeline gets bumped down to eight months. To get down to four months, you have to just say, "Okay, half the decks aren't done, life support is unstable, but it can fly, so those are all just going to get fixed in the future." Especially since a lot of what the Executor needs to do is just fly around and look intimidating.
All subsequent Executor-class ships get built in a more sane way. (Though in truth, it's more likely that the "real" build time for one of those ships is actually eleven months and a whole contingent of hard-working people are busting their asses to get them done in ten.)
u/Nevereatcars [+1] The Greatest Is Behind (4 days later)
Ahh, I thought it was meant to tie into the earlier comment about how the second Death Star was intended to take less time because all the challenges had already been solved during the construction of the first.
u/The_Entire_Eurozone [+2] (7 hours later)
Just one question- will this fanfiction spoil the latest Star Wars?
u/alexanderwales [+2] Time flies like an arrow (7 hours later)
Nope, it contains only stuff found in the original trilogy (plus some background numbers that are largely from the EU).
u/whywhisperwhy [+1] (a day later)
The Force Awakens spoilers below-
u/KOTORman [+1] Galactic Empire (5 days later)
u/whywhisperwhy [+2] (5 days later)
u/The_Entire_Eurozone [+1] (7 hours later)
Thank you. Look forward to reading it.
u/Covane [+1] Dragon Army (3 hours later)
good fic mr. wales
u/dcb720 [+1] (7 hours later)
Brilliant as usual.
u/raymestalez [+1] (21 hours later)
I loved it, great story!
u/TaoGaming [+1] No Flair Detected! (23 hours later)
This reminds me of Death March: The Complete Software Developer's Guide to Surviving 'Mission Impossible' Projects by Yourden.