Reasons Against Super Fast Scifi Space Travel

[kerbiloid]

Take aim, get to near-light speed and spread nails.

[SunlitZelkova]

4 hours ago, DDE said:

But not too expensive to put them into battle. Including single-seat FTL-enabled ships.

Simply put, there is no excuse for them not lightspeed-ramming a Star Destroyer, let alone a Death Star, with a snubfighter all the time. SW opened up the mother of all cans of worms just for one pretty visual that had little storytelling value - the ramming scene as well as the Supremacy itself are a late addition (that TLJ went with the first draft is an oft-repeated lie), Holdo used to be an actual FO sympathizer as a senator for Cantonica the Casino Planet, the covert seat of Snoke's power and the location of his throne room, ensuring that the main characters converge on the same location rather than some of them spend time on an inconsequential side story. Sounds like a better movie, does it not?

/rant

The Resistance/good guys in general apparently values their droids like people, so maybe there is some resistance (no pun intended) to the idea of having them fly starfighters on a suicide attack.

Also in real life, suicide attacks were often seen as a desperate measure only done when you are about to be destroyed anyways. If I recall correctly, it didn't become a viable strategy except in two cases- early in the Second Sino-Japanese War when China had little to no anti-tank weaponry and had to resort to having people strap explosives to themselves and make a run for the underside of Japanese tanks, and late in WWII when Japan adopted a number of "special attack" tactics and weapons.

On the other hand, rather than using ships themselves, they could just use a hyper drive equipped dumb projectile, fly it right up to an enemy vessel, and then let it rip.

In any case, what you said is true. What I wrote in this post tries to excuse the Resistance, but the First Order has no reason not to.

[DDE]

9 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

On the other hand, rather than using ships themselves, they could just use a hyper drive equipped dumb projectile, fly it right up to an enemy vessel, and then let it rip.

Indeed.

9 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

The Resistance/good guys in general apparently values their droids like people, so maybe there is some resistance (no pun intended) to the idea of having them fly starfighters on a suicide attack.

Also in real life, suicide attacks were often seen as a desperate measure only done when you are about to be destroyed anyways. If I recall correctly, it didn't become a viable strategy except in two cases- early in the Second Sino-Japanese War when China had little to no anti-tank weaponry and had to resort to having people strap explosives to themselves and make a run for the underside of Japanese tanks, and late in WWII when Japan adopted a number of "special attack" tactics and weapons.

And yet anyone who goes into battle commits to a certain level of "acceptible" casualties, trading lives for tactical and strategic gains (which is why Leia's reaction to the loss of a handful of bombers doesn't make sense either). The line between a suicidally dangerous mission and a suicide attack is very much blurred, and if the latter may spare many people from dying in the former, you'd find plenty of volunteers willing to solve your Trolley Problem for you.

[Mitchz95]

On 4/17/2021 at 2:11 PM, DDE said:

But not too expensive to put them into battle. Including single-seat FTL-enabled ships.

Simply put, there is no excuse for them not lightspeed-ramming a Star Destroyer, let alone a Death Star, with a snubfighter all the time. SW opened up the mother of all cans of worms just for one pretty visual that had little storytelling value

To be fair, combat in the Star Wars universe never made sense to begin with. They have target-tracking missiles, and yet starfighters still dogfight like it's the 1940s. Sheer pilot attrition should have brought down the Rebellion within a year. They have space battleships that can depopulate planets within days, and yet they hardly ever use orbital bombardment to force a surrender. Often they'll deploy pitifully small ground forces that have next to no air support. And worst of all, no matter how many times the above blows up in their faces, they go right back to their old habits as soon as the dust settles. Death Star got blown up? Build another one three times bigger.

I love Star Wars, but like all space opera, it runs on rule of cool realistic physics and tactics. That's not a bad thing, it's just the nature of the genre.

[DDE]

33 minutes ago, Mitchz95 said:

They have target-tracking missiles, and yet starfighters still dogfight like it's the 1940s.

There were handwave lines about that in some draft of Episode 4.

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/220-SIG_Tactical_Sensor_Jamming_Device

[kerbiloid]

If weld spikes across the Death Start canyons, then...

 

[DDE]

45 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

If weld spikes across the Death Start canyons, then...

[kerbiloid]

Yes, and vacuum balloons in the surrounding vacuum.