mikewint
Captain
Dave, there was nothing mounted on it, the Starkiller Base was an entire planet turned into a death star.
Starkiller Base has been constructed to allow it to suck all the energy out of a star thousands of times its size. Do the math on that. Or, if you like, do the science-fictional math. Neither is anything but ludicrous. Take the Earth and Sun as an example: The total volume of the sun is 1.4 x 10^27 cubic meters. About 1.3 million Earths could fit inside the sun. The mass of the sun is 1.989 x 10^30 kilograms, about 333,000 times the mass of the Earth.
If Starkiller Base is a weaponized, orbit-locked planet that can't be flown, it's the worst weapon ever and not one the First Order would ever have constructed. Why construct such an object directly under the nose of the very Republic it aims to destroy? Are we to assume the Republic doesn't even do the most cursory "check-ins" on nearby planets and moons to see if they are, I don't know, being turned into anything fairly denominated a "starkiller"? And if Starkiller Base is a planet-sized object that can fly on its own, why is it anywhere near Republic-held territory when it fires its killing blow at the Republic? There's no reason for that risk. More simply: how is this orbit-locked planet any improvement on the maneuverable Death Star?
Let's revisit the two previous Death Stars: To blow up the 120-km "Death Star" in Star Wars, the rebels needed detailed plans for the base and a full-scale invasion force — as well as the supernatural targeting skills of the most powerful Force-user in the galaxy. To destroy the exponentially larger and better-protected "Starkiller Base" in The Force Awakens, all that was needed was a janitor with no special skills, a few run-of-the-mill handheld explosives, a couple not very difficult X-wing blaster strikes, and some moxie. It also helped that the Millennium Falcon was able to "fly low."
Why would the First Order spend untold quadrillions of whatever they use for money to build the Starkiller Base, when a similar concept and design plan had failed twice before AND had been destroyed with minimal difficulty by the rebels? Not to mention that all three had been destroyed the same way via a wide open, unguarded, exhaust port. And doesn't the recurrence of this tactical error for the third time in the (relatively) brief history of the Empire/First Order suggest that everyone in the First Order who was involved in the construction of Starkiller Base, at every level of management and authority, should be instantly shot in the head? How positively brain-dead is Snoke to have learned literally nothing from history?
Starkiller Base has been constructed to allow it to suck all the energy out of a star thousands of times its size. Do the math on that. Or, if you like, do the science-fictional math. Neither is anything but ludicrous. Take the Earth and Sun as an example: The total volume of the sun is 1.4 x 10^27 cubic meters. About 1.3 million Earths could fit inside the sun. The mass of the sun is 1.989 x 10^30 kilograms, about 333,000 times the mass of the Earth.
If Starkiller Base is a weaponized, orbit-locked planet that can't be flown, it's the worst weapon ever and not one the First Order would ever have constructed. Why construct such an object directly under the nose of the very Republic it aims to destroy? Are we to assume the Republic doesn't even do the most cursory "check-ins" on nearby planets and moons to see if they are, I don't know, being turned into anything fairly denominated a "starkiller"? And if Starkiller Base is a planet-sized object that can fly on its own, why is it anywhere near Republic-held territory when it fires its killing blow at the Republic? There's no reason for that risk. More simply: how is this orbit-locked planet any improvement on the maneuverable Death Star?
Let's revisit the two previous Death Stars: To blow up the 120-km "Death Star" in Star Wars, the rebels needed detailed plans for the base and a full-scale invasion force — as well as the supernatural targeting skills of the most powerful Force-user in the galaxy. To destroy the exponentially larger and better-protected "Starkiller Base" in The Force Awakens, all that was needed was a janitor with no special skills, a few run-of-the-mill handheld explosives, a couple not very difficult X-wing blaster strikes, and some moxie. It also helped that the Millennium Falcon was able to "fly low."
Why would the First Order spend untold quadrillions of whatever they use for money to build the Starkiller Base, when a similar concept and design plan had failed twice before AND had been destroyed with minimal difficulty by the rebels? Not to mention that all three had been destroyed the same way via a wide open, unguarded, exhaust port. And doesn't the recurrence of this tactical error for the third time in the (relatively) brief history of the Empire/First Order suggest that everyone in the First Order who was involved in the construction of Starkiller Base, at every level of management and authority, should be instantly shot in the head? How positively brain-dead is Snoke to have learned literally nothing from history?
