Why Darth Vader Said The Death Star was the Empire's Greatest MISTAKE

Lord Vader absolutely hated the Death Star and stated very clearly that it was doomed to fail greetings acolytes and welcome back to the archives it's no secret that at the very beginning Vader knew that the Death Star was a bad idea during the early years of his training as a Sith he never really paid much attention to it as he was still trying to get a grasp on his new life inside of his armor he would spend a lot of his time in the shadow of the Death Star aboard his Star Destroyer as that was where he would build his new lightsaber and start his life as a dark lord but as soon as he gained a proper control over his abilities once again and finished hunting the Jedi to near Extinction Vader finally began to pay attention to the nature of the Empire that now surrounded him and he found it to be utterly lacking Vader was often displeased with the petty spitefulness and ineptitude of his fellow Imperials as he began to question the wisdom of his master when it came to the Empire's Ultimate Weapon when the planet busting battle station was finally completed Vader absolutely despised it and called his master into question so today acolytes we're going to be exploring the Tactical practical and philosophical reason behind Vader's disdain for the Death Star the first thing that we'll address is the vague reason that Vader himself gives on more than one occasion the ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the force in the latter years of Vader's life he had steadily grown more and more obsessed with powers in the dark side originally Vader hadn't cared much for Sith teachings or Sith ways cidus threw a few books and holocrons his way but as far as real Sith training went that never really occurred Vader proved early on that he wasn't going to be the Sith Apprentice that cidus had always dreamed of an apprentice that he could perform rituals with and combine their power to create something terrifying so after trying endlessly for that goal the emperor would pretty much give up on Vader on his own eventually Vader himself would come around to the idea that he once realized that there was nothing in the Galaxy left for him besides the Empire Palpatine and the force he became religiously zealous to the dark side championing the idea that it ruled over all and that it even ruled his own life it's our belief here at The Archives that around this time Vader was wanting to try a much different approach to Warfare something more in line with the ancient Sith simply put Vader desired to employ more uses of the dark side against his enemies which was their greatest weapon for Darth cius to suddenly place all of his bets into a technological Terror flew in the face of everything that Vader thought cidus was trying to teach him and perhaps Vader even believed that such an idea bordered on heresy Vader was never someone that pursued ultimate power in the dark side we don't really see him scouring libraries of Sith knowledge or attempting to conduct rituals much like Malgus the whole magic and sorcery side of things just wasn't his tune however Vader did like the idea of using the raw power of the force against his enemies to inspire fear by destroying them with powers that they didn't understand his preferred method of inflicting harm was the force choke this characterizes everything that Vader enjoys just by raising his hand he was able to deprive another being of the basic right to breathe they helplessly and uselessly grasp at their throat trying to pry away a hand that is not there they're terrified and baffled they are strangled in a way that they cannot comprehend they are lesser how could they comprehend it they are powerless to stop it no amount of military analysis can interpret the true powers of the dark side this was the destruction through the force that Vader wanted to inflict but now the emperor from Vader's perspective had abandoned these Notions and wanted to build a Gody metal weapon one which could be seen analyzed and destroyed this brings us to the next reason the Tactical reasoning behind Vader's hatred a giant sphere of metal and Machinery might as well have a big Target painted on it Vader highly disproved of such a massive battle station being the very Cornerstone of the Empire's entire military power in the Tarkin Doctrine which was the letter Tarkin wrote to Palpatine concerning the idea of the Death Star Tarkin talks about how a weapon can often more than make up for the need for excessive force since the threat of the force is conveyed through the size of the weapon itself Tarkin would use the idea of a star destroyer for example he stated that the average non-military mind looks up at those ships and lose all will to fight once they see how massive they are Tarkin finishes by saying the same would be true for the Death Star which would be impossibly massive and would destroy an enemy's will to fight but again here these are for the non-military minded those with experience would know the larger the weapon the larger the weak point Vader being a tactically minded man himself is able to see this flaw a mile away and so did the Rebel Alliance who instantly knew to capture the Death Star plans to find that weak spot Vader was aware that the rebels would take this course of action because he himself experienced something similar as a child as a boy Anakin managed to blow up the Trade Federation control ship which in itself was very similar to the battle station that they were constructing Vader saw the ultimate weakness in the Death Star pointed it out but they simply told him that it was too powerful too massive but now we must speak of practicality the practicality of constructing a weapon so massive was called into question not just by Vader but also grand Admiral thraw and general tag all three of these men were of one mind that the massive amounts of resources being devoted to the Death Star would put better use into the Imperial Navy it cannot be understated how much the Empire crippled its other manufacturing efforts in service of the Death Star many shipyards meant for Star Destroyers were converted into facilities for this sole battle station including kuat shipyards which were perhaps the largest and most important manufacturing plant in the entirety of the Empire it was on kuat that the Superstar destroyed destroyers were being constructed including Vader's own executor both Vader and tag believed that the more Superstar destroyers would have been a better idea over the Death Star a larger Fleet would make it easier to keep local systems in line and respond to military threats with efficiency thraw even had the idea for a new line of Tie fighters known as the tie Defenders this was the most advanced Elite tie ever produced with more powerful Weaponry a hyperdrive and even deflector Shields all of this without sacrificing movement and speed thraw wanted to create a small death Squadron comprised of these tii Defenders and they would hit the rebels over and over and over again with hit-and run tactics this would have absolutely annihilated the only advantage that the alliance had and Vader approved of this idea but the emperor did not the Death Star was his end all even though a few prototypes of the Defenders were made the line was never put into production because of the manufacturing cost the trade-off for all of these perks was that the tie Defender was over five times the cost of a regular TIE fighter as Fighters were priced at a range of 50 to 80,000 credits whereas the defender clocked in at 300,000 credits but of course with the Empire's impressive amount of resources this wouldn't have been an issue had it not been for the Death Star the idea of the Defenders throw on small Elite task forces and improv planetary security would all be scrapped in service to a beacon of Imperial arrogance and Vader watched it all happen with hatred and Malice after the destruction of the Death Star Vader had this to say I was not alone in my failings the arrogance of the weapon courted disaster what is so fascinating about Vader's hatred for the Death Star is it's not only on a physical level but again philosophically as well Vader believed that overall the Death Star was bad for the Empire as a whole as it promoted this arrogance and as he put it cted their disaster Vader would even believe that the Death Star was one of the greatest missteps of Palpatine Vader loathed the hubris that the Death Star inspired in lesser beings Imperials gained a hotess and they soon believed themselves to be Invincible their power beyond the force they became insolent sloppy and even thought that they could talk back to Vader he watched as the Empire lost sight of the real power which made it strong in the first place the dark side Admiral miti embodied this belief as he proclaimed that the Death Star was now the ultimate power in the universe but to make things worse the emperor himself believed in the weapon so much that he had everyone in charge of it under his protection Vader could not touch them he wasn't allowed to kill anyone who had charge of the project and not only that but Vader was also tasked with being the overseer and defender of the battle station this put Vader in an almost subservient position to Grand moth Tarkin who now had the authority to order Vader what to to do Vader had already perceived Tarkin to be a rival but what truly bothered Vader was how drunk Tarkin and the officers were going from the power seeing that they were literally going insane from it human beings are not meant to hold the power that the Death Star gave them especially not for sensitives Vader had suspected that Tarkin was starting to slip a little but this was all confirmed during the novelization for a New Hope after Tarkin gave the order to destroy alderon Vader warned that obliterated a core world so close to corusant would have massive unforeseen impacts on the structure of the Empire the Sith Lord suggested that Tarkin at least check in with the emperor before moving forward but in that moment Tarkin snapped at Vader telling the Dark Lord that he was in control here and his decisions were final at this moment Vader realized that the man had lost his mind he had the trigger to destroy any Planet he wanted and what made Vader know that Tarkin was truly insane is that when he yelled at him there was no semblance of any fear in the grand moth whatsoever and only the insane would be Fearless before Vader what Vader didn't know is that Tarkin was actually literally seeing things figments of his own imagination terrifying hallucinations of people that he had murdered people that were screaming for him to join them all of this was further exacerbated by tarkin's Newfound Godlike power power bestowed upon him by the Death Star in the end even after Vader was proven correct and the Death Star was destroyed he would still see no end to the misery that it caused him Palpatine blamed him of all people for its failure and had him punished needless to say Vader was likely not excited about the announcement of a second death star but anyway my friends what are your thoughts on the reasoning behind why Darth Vader truly detested the Death Star and said it was doomed to fail and was a major mistake what do you think would have happened if the emperor had listened to Vader and thrawn and what are your thoughts on how the Death Star actually made the Empire weaker as always my friends thank you so much for visiting the channel today and as always May the force be with you

Channel: The Stupendous Wave

Views: 49,388

Keywords: Death Star, Star Wars, Darth Vader, Star Wars Theory, The Acolyte, Jedi, Sith, Darth Sidious, Star Wars Explained

Id: Qji1HNiYfdY

Length: 11min 13sec (673 seconds)

Published: Mon May 27 2024