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Subject: "SW: On Managing Large Projects"     Previous Topic | Next Topic
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StClair
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678 posts
Jun-12-17, 03:04 PM (EDT)
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"SW: On Managing Large Projects"
 
   (and managing those who manage them)

So, small spoiler for Rogue One: we finally find out why the Death Star (I) has that literal plot hole, in the form of an exhaust port leading directly to the main reactor, lacking only a sign in large friendly letters (INSERT TORPEDO HERE). And now, in the novelization, we have the explanation of how the person responsible arranged for it to be there.

Basically, he made sure that his supervisor - Director Orson Krennic, one of those archetypical Imperial administrators - was CC:ed on every single email in a very long discussion of how to fix a certain design problem that had only just now been noticed and would be very costly to fix, in terms of time (tear down and start over) and/or better-quality materials. Or, they could do this one thing, not a perfect solution but it would work, mostly, and only be an increased radiation risk to some stormtroopers...

At which point Director Krennic, who is under pressure from Largo his own superiors and, more importantly, tired of this stupid email chain, tells them to just fucking do it and stop bothering him. And the guy who set the whole thing up is like, "okay." :3

The rest, as they say, is history.


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Matrix Dragon
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1703 posts
Jun-13-17, 03:35 AM (EDT)
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1. "RE: SW: On Managing Large Projects"
In response to message #0
 
   Even better, he made sure the flaw would be there in the first place by being the guy that, every time someone had an idea on something new and shiny, would think it was fantastic and would make the project even bigger and cooler and clearly they had to pull the old parts out and install the new shiny thing, he's already gone ahead and ordered the parts, they'll be here tomorrow, he's really looking forward to seeing how this turns out.

He delayed the Death Star for years with office bullshit. His bureaucratic kung-fu is best.

Matrix Dragon, J. Random Nutter


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ebony14
Member since Jul-11-11
408 posts
Jun-13-17, 08:33 AM (EDT)
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2. "RE: SW: On Managing Large Projects"
In response to message #1
 
   >He delayed the Death Star for years with office bullshit. His
>bureaucratic kung-fu is best.

As Oskar Schindler and Raoul Wallenberg remind us, not all war heroes use guns.

Ebony the Black Dragon

"Life is like an anole. Sometimes it's green. Sometimes it's brown. But it's always a small Caribbean lizard."


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Mercutio
Member since May-26-13
850 posts
Jun-13-17, 10:40 AM (EDT)
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3. "RE: SW: On Managing Large Projects"
In response to message #0
 
   >(and managing those who manage them)
>
>So, small spoiler for Rogue One:

I'm somewhat surprised there wasn't a thread here at the time.

>we finally find out
>why the Death Star (I) has that literal plot hole, in the form
>of an exhaust port leading directly to the main reactor, lacking only
>a sign in large friendly letters (INSERT TORPEDO HERE).

Sigh.

First of all, this wasn't a plot hole. This wasn't even bad plotting.

The Death Star had a secondary reactor exhaust port that is, quite literally, just barely wider than a torpedo. (You can see that in the movie itself; those torpedoes only barely fit.) It's shielded, and even if it weren't it is at the bottom of a trench surrounded by turbolaser batteries and part of a battlestation that can, if it chooses, throw hundreds if not thousands of starfighters into a CAP. When the Alliance pilots are told what they need to do, the instant reaction of one of their most daring combat veterans is "That's impossible, even for the computer!" and he was right about that, because the guy who tries to use his computer targeting fails completely. It is only because they have a dude with space magic flying with them that they manage to sink the shot.

Complaining about the exhaust port is a little bit like pointing at a tank and going "Look at the huge vulnerable spot! There's a hole right up front that leads down a shaft that ends in the very heart of the machine, which sometimes has highly explosive ordinance loaded into it. Madness! What idiot designed this?"

Second of all, Galen Erso didn't arrange for the exhaust port and shaft. Well, he did, I think, but that isn't the vulnerability he built in, and it is implied that the exhaust port and shaft would've been there anyway.

The vulnerability he built in was explicitly the fact that if you hit the main reactor, instead of just being crippled, or going to backup power, a chain reaction occurs that makes the entire thing blow up. My understanding is that he assumed the Alliance would send a commando team onto the station itself to blow it from the inside.

That was far more important than the exhaust port itself.

>Basically, he made sure that his supervisor - Director Orson Krennic,
>one of those archetypical Imperial administrators -

I did enjoy Galen's manipulation of the Imperial bureaucracy. That was pretty sweet.

I also kind of like... if, for some reason, you're really enamored of Bevel Lemelisk and a lot of the other lore around the construction and development of the Death Star, Rogue One doesn't actually explicitly retcon that.

-Merc
Keep Rat


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