Star Wars: Endor Holocaust

Star Wars: Endor Holocaust, submitted by Joe. While sites like this naturally destroy my faith in all mankind, I must admit that it certainly is refreshing to know there's a large group of people out there with waaaaay more free time than I do. Unfortunately, instead of spending it trying to make the Internet a kinder and friendlier place (like I do with my page, cough cough), they choose to devote their time analyzing the motives and scientific principles behind "Star Wars" all goddamn day.

Their strategic calculus might demand that the battle station be destroyed, for the greater good of the majority of sapient species in the galaxy. Considering the importance of the Emperor and his superweapon, a biosphere lacking sapient natives would be a justifiable sacrifice, which could save other worlds from obliteration. War is cruel and desperate, and the rebels might not have reconsidered their attack under any circumstances. However some may believe that a knowing willingness to endanger an intelligent species would expose severe hypocrisy in the propaganda of the Alliance / New Republic. Whether or not the rebels had foreknowledge, the fate of Endor would probably remain a secret of the New Republic government. Although the uninformed personnel of the fleet and ground operations are blameless, the decisions of the highest rebel leaders deserve scrutiny. It may have been clumisiness and poor research, or it may have been ruthless utilitarianism.

The truth, which remains unexplained to this day, is likely to involve more clumsiness than malice. Rebel intelligence was not excellent in the Battle of Endor. Their spies clearly were manipulated by the Emperor to the extent of providing wholly false information about the condition of the Death Star II and the distribution of security forces.

Does it matter whether the bulk of the station was vaporised?

No. Material that is turned to vapour does not vanish. Vapour cools rapidly by radiating its heat to space and also by conducting heat to air once it hits the atmosphere. The result of this cooling is that the vapour would recondense as solid soot, like water precipitating as snowflakes. Indeed the margins of the Death Star II explosion appeared sooty before many of the ground troops noticed the fireball. Therefore some condensation began to occur only seconds after the detonation. In any case the explosion shows numerous large tumbling solid fragments, each of which alone is sufficient to cause a global mass-extinction event. In summary, there are two extreme alternatives, and a mixture of intermediate possiblities in between: (1) big solid chunks of the DS impacting on the surface and throwing up fallout dust; or (2) huge volumes of metallic vapour condensing in the atmosphere to give a similar amount of dust.

– Rich "Lowtax" Kyanka (@TwitterHasBannedAllMyAccountsEver)