Star Wars: Nothing But Star Wars

[Lord Varys]

3 hours ago, Rubicante said:

As for the Death Star jumping in around Yavin, even if they were on the side of Yavin opposite of the Rebel base, why not just destroy the gas giant?  Surely that explosion would take out a small moon.  And I won’t buy the explanation “The Death Star can’t destroy a gas giant”.  Surely firing at the middle of the gas giant would be enough to do something that would lead to it’s destruction.

There you can indeed argue that exploding a gas giant may be a kind of a problem ... but it isn't really a problem at all. Tarkin is in no rush, and so convinced that they will crush the Rebellion that he doesn't leave the Death Star when they figure out the attack plan of the rebels.

It may be convenient for the plot that the Death Star has to get into range, but there for the people involved that's not a big issue. They think they have time.

And in context considering the size and mass of the Death Star it must be a very, well, complicated endeavor to get close to a planet at all. It could easily enough destroy or seriously affect the gravitational framework of the system they are, with possibly drastic consequences for the Death Star itself.

Thus the way to make sense of this would indeed be that they approached Yavin from the wrong side and that calculating a jump was either impractical or would take about as long as approaching Yavin 4 the way they did.

7 minutes ago, Ran said:

The problem with "just transmit it" is that space is way big and the Millenium Falcon is not a Rebel ship. To whom exactly are they going to transmit anything?  Especially given that there's no evidence that the Millenium Falcon is capable of transmitting anything outside of its local system, at least at the time of A New Hope. So they'd have to travel to some hotbed of Rebel activity so that Leia could find someone who'd carry the message on to Yavin, right? Leading the Death Star right to this hotbed of activity just to protect the Rebel base while rising the lives of the people there.

It is not 'just transmit the plans' but the fact that the movie itself established that a ship-to-ship transmission of such plans is possible, so this should have been a serious consideration for all parties involved. For instance, Obi-Wan should have looked for a ship capable to do such transmissions when he first looked for a freighter to get them to Alderaan. The idea that he would pick a ship which couldn't transmit the plans if push came to shove would be a very bad call on his part. I mean, what would he do if the Empire tracked them down? Via transmission they could hand the plans to others even if they were killed - without that capability there entire mission would be doomed.

We can also expect that a (former) Imperial Senator and member of the royal family of Alderaan knows enough people with access to ships with transmitting capabilities outside the circle of Rebel operatives. Leia could have taken them to a shipyard facility, say, to buy or lease a ship with the necessary specifications rather than taking the Falcon to the one place where the Death Star should not go.

I mean, the plan is nonsensical. They hope that there is a weakness in the plans which they could exploit - they don't know it. One could make a case for Leia drawing the Death Star to Yavin 4 once she knows for a fact that there is a chance to take it out then and there - but not at a point when it is still a gamble whether the plans actually allow them to discover a weakness in the Death Star design.