Could the Death Star take out Coruscant?

Is Coruscant's defense strong enough to keep up against an attack from the Death Star?

If Tarkin lost control or turned against the Emperor, I guess even Vader couldn't stop the leader of the battle station from doing what he wants. Ie. Qui-Gon told "I can't fight a war for you" and there must be some legions on the Death Star.

Could the Death Star impose a threat to the capital of the Empire?

Answer

Yes. In Wedge's Gamble, there's a passage that talks about the main computer centre and says something along the lines of

Rumour had it that if the Death Star had been used against Coruscant, the computer centre would have been a recognisable and salvageable piece of debris.
Wedge's Gamble, p243

which suggests that the Death Stars' superlaser would overwhelm even the double shielding in place over Coruscant.

As to the point about Tarkin and Vader, as I said in this answer Vader was on the Death Star precisely to prevent Tarkin from getting the idea of taking out the Emperor. The Emperor also organised the leadership aboard the Death Star (between Tarkin, Tagge and Motti) so that all three would be jockeying for power between them instead of working together to do something ... foolish.

I guess even Vader couldn't stop the leader of the battle station do what he wants

Well, if Tarkin had gone off the rails and despatched the Death Star's entire stormtrooper garrison to take out, frankly my money'd be on the dude in the black.

BTW my reading of Qui-Gon's 'I can't fight a war for you' statement is less a reflection of his capabilities and more to do with the neutrality of the Jedi.

Comments

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.

Was the "pure soul" of Harry's what had really hurt Voldemort?

In the Order of the Phoenix, Voldemort possesses Harry, and it hurts. Greatly. I think that Dumbledore explained that it was because Voldemort's rotten soul was incapable of assimilating Harry's pure soul, that Voldemort didn't understand the love and friendship etc that Harry has in his heart. But, I think it was a lie. Remember that in Deathly Hallows, while looking for information regarding Horcruxes, it is discovered that it is in fact possible to merge a soul fragment back, but that the process was extremely painful. Now then, if Voldemort tried to possess Harry, and Harry had a fragment of Voldemort's soul, I think that it could have been the true cause of Voldemort's pain: the fact of having his soul so close of another fragment. I think that Dumbledore knew that fact, but had to lie to Harry because it was inappropriate to let him know that he had one of Voldemort's soul fragments at the moment. Is that right? Or was it truly the pure soul of Harry's...

languages - Do we ever see written English in the Star Wars films?

In Empire Strikes Back , we see a transcription of what R2's beeps and bloops mean, but it's not English (sorry for the low quality, it's from the 2004 DVDs): I'd assume it's what Basic looks like when written, but is there some point in the the Star Wars films we see written English instead? (This sort of spun off from a discussion in How do people understand astromech droids? .) Answer At one point there was English but it has been phased out in subsequent versions of the films. Chris Gould at DVD Active did a comparison of all versions of each of the Star Wars films, and in his comparison of Episode 4 , there are a couple of screenshots showing how the power gauge for the Death Star tractor beam was changed. I imagine there are probably more to be found in his other comparisons but I haven't got around to reading those yet.

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