Saturday, February 10, 2018

[nxqmwkox] Death Star morality, or lack thereof

It is cute that Rogue One established (via kyber crystals) that the Death Star is just an oversized lightsaber (or maybe a lightsaber is a miniaturized Death Star?), explaining away with the same "magic" two of the more scientifically implausible technologies in Star Wars (though the Death Star is not that implausible).

Curiously, before firing the Death Star at full power, there is depicted no philosophical hand-wringing about whether mortals should wield such a power akin to a god.  Depict such conversations, or explain why not.  Such conversations did occur before detonating the first atomic bombs.

Some possibilities why not: The Emperor is a god, so firing his weapon to do godlike tasks is perfectly normal.  The Empire had been regularly destroying planets already, perhaps with Base Delta Zero or telekinesis by the Emperor or Darth Vader, so this is nothing new, just a slightly new way to go about it.  The history of ancient superweapons is still very much present in people's minds, so firing a Death Star feels like firing an old firearm, nothing godlike.  The Emperor is doing vast Battle Meditation to prevent subordinates from thinking such thoughts.  (The Emperor may have been doing Battle Meditation to organize workers to build the thing, so this is another Sith technology involved in the project, another reason why nothing like it had been built until a Sith came to power.  The technology of labor organization is reminiscent of later civilizations expressing wonderment at the labor organization needed to build the pyramids.)  The Empire is deeply atheistic (perhaps due to its high level of technology) so does not believe that there are powers that only gods should have.

No comments :