Was Luke Skywalker wrong for destroying the Death Star?

[Anarcho-libertarian]

Lets say there were schools and nurseries on the Death Star with innocent children. Would a libertarian Rebel Alliance have acted any differently?

Btw, Timothy McVeigh used this reasoning as justification for the children he killed in the Oklahoma City bombing.

[dude6935]

The empire placed those people in harms way. The rebels are acting in self defense. They have every right to destroy or disable the Death Star.

Anyone on the Death Star (the aggressor) is either there by their free will or they have allowed themselves to be coerced into that position. Either way, once the station is destroyed, they have no claim against Luke. They only have claim against the Empire for taking them hostage or for tricking them by fraud to be in that position.

This human shield scenario has also been discussed here.

[Malachi]

yes, they should have boarded and disabled the cannon. people will find any excuse to justify the use of wmd’s.

[Marko]

Not everybody on here is a Star War geek. I last saw that movie 15 years ago. You’re going to have to provide some more context here. I don’t remember what would have happened had he not destroyed it? Was it spooling up its death ray beam or something?

[FlyingAxe]

What does “allowed themselves to be coerced” mean?

[Marko]

What does “allowed themselves to be coerced” mean?

Well spotted. It usually means person saying it is being a jerk.

[dude6935]

What does “allowed themselves to be coerced” mean?

As I said:

They only have claim against the Empire for taking them hostage or for tricking them by fraud to be in that position.

I do not mean to imply that they "permitted’ themselves to be coerced. Just that they were unable to prevent it. They are responsible for their own security. If they fail in that regard and become a hostage (a human shield), Luke has no responsibility to protect them. Their only claim is against the hostage takers, not against the people who destroy the vessel that both the hostages and the aggressors occupy (in self defense).

The only alternative is that the rebels allow themselves to be murdered. That is a pretty absurd position.

[Buzz_Killington]

What was so bad about the Death Star, anyway?

[John_James]

@Buzz Killington

What was so bad about the Death Star, anyway?

It was a star of death, obviously.

[Anarcho-libertarian]

It was spooling up its death ray beam, after having already destroyed one planet.

Wiki: Commanded by Grand Moff Tarkin, it is the Galactic Empire’s “ultimate weapon”, a space station capable of destroying a planet with one shot of its superlaser. The film opens with Leia Organa transporting the station’s schematics to the Rebel Alliance to aid them in destroying the Death Star. Tarkin orders the Death Star to destroy Leia’s home world of Alderaan in an attempt to pressure her into giving him the location of the secret Rebel base; she gives them a (false) location, but Tarkin has the planet destroyed anyway (population: 1.97 billion). Tarkin felt the Rebels were growing bolder, and only a very public demonstration of the Death Star’s power against a Rebel target would succeed in frightening the Alliance into submission.

[Anarcho-libertarian]

@Malachi

yes, they should have boarded and disabled the cannon. people will find any excuse to justify the use of wmd’s.

That is what I was thinking too. Do you think that their chances of being able to accomplish that should be considered? The Death Star had an operating crew of 265,675 plus 52,276 gunners, 607,360 troops, 30,984 stormtroopers, 42,782 ship support staff, and 180,216 pilots and flight crew. Lets say that the Rebels only had 1,000 soldiers that they could get onto the Death Star to enact your plan. This would obviously be suicide. The only hope I can see here is that no one knows the future, and so maybe the Empire will change their mind at the last second and not fire on the planet.

[katokato]

We go back to Anatomy of the state (and the author that it references, i forget the name).

And the distinguishment between the state and the people.

If state x declares war against state y, then are the people subject to those states also declaring war?

No.

Infact, war is merely the quarelling between two states. Citizens should not be subject to war. It is the state’s problem, which is why there are many international laws limiting the destruction states can cause towards each other.

(At least that is how it is supposed to be)

How States Relate to One Another

Since the territorial area of the earth is divided among different States, inter-State relations must occupy much of a State’s time and energy. The natural tendency of a State is to expand its power, and externally such expansion takes place by conquest of a territorial area. Unless a territory is stateless or uninhabited, any such expansion involves an inherent conflict of interest between one set of State rulers and another. Only one set of rulers can obtain a monopoly of coercion over any given territorial area at any one time: complete power over a territory by State X can only be obtained by the expulsion of State Y. War, while risky, will be an ever-present tendency of States, punctuated by periods of peace and by shifting alliances and coalitions between States.

We have seen that the “internal” or “domestic” attempt to limit the State, in the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries, reached its most notable form in constitutionalism. Its “external,” or “foreign affairs,” counterpart was the development of “international law,” especially such forms as the “laws of war” and “neutrals’ rights.”[37] Parts of international law were originally purely private, growing out of the need of merchants and traders everywhere to protect their property and adjudicate disputes. Examples are admiralty law and the law merchant. But even the governmental rules emerged voluntarily and were not imposed by any international super-State. The object of the “laws of war” was to limit inter-State destruction to the State apparatus itself, thereby preserving the innocent “civilian” public from the slaughter and devastation of war. The object of the development of neutrals’ rights was to preserve private civilian international commerce, even with “enemy” countries, from seizure by one of the warring parties. The overriding aim, then, was to limit the extent of any war, and, particularly to limit its destructive impact on the private citizens of the neutral and even the warring countries.

The jurist F.J.P. Veale charmingly describes such “civilized warfare” as it briefly flourished in fifteenth-century Italy:

the rich burghers and merchants of medieval Italy were too busy making money and enjoying life to undertake the hardships and dangers of soldiering themselves. So they adopted the practice of hiring mercenaries to do their fighting for them, and, being thrifty, businesslike folk, they dismissed their mercenaries immediately after their services could be dispensed with. Wars were, therefore, fought by armies hired for each campaign. . . . For the first time, soldiering became a reasonable and comparatively harmless profession. The generals of that period maneuvered against each other, often with consummate skill, but when one had won the advantage, his opponent generally either retreated or surrendered. It was a recognized rule that a town could only be sacked if it offered resistance: immunity could always be purchased by paying a ransom. . . . As one natural consequence, no town ever resisted, it being obvious that a government too weak to defend its citizens had forfeited their allegiance. Civilians had little to fear from the dangers of war which were the concern only of professional soldiers.[38]

The well-nigh absolute separation of the private civilian from the State’s wars in eighteenth-century Europe is highlighted by Nef:

Even postal communications were not successfully restricted for long in wartime. Letters circulated without censorship, with a freedom that astonishes the twentieth-century mind. . . . The subjects of two warring nations talked to each other if they met, and when they could not meet, corresponded, not as enemies but as friends. The modern notion hardly existed that . . . subjects of any enemy country are partly accountable for the belligerent acts of their rulers. Nor had the warring rulers any firm disposition to stop communications with subjects of the enemy. The old inquisitorial practices of espionage in connection with religious worship and belief were disappearing, and no comparable inquisition in connection with political or economic communications was even contemplated. Passports were originally created to provide safe conduct in time of war. During most of the eighteenth century it seldom occurred to Europeans to abandon their travels in a foreign country which their own was fighting.[39]

And trade being increasingly recognized as beneficial to both parties; eighteenth-century warfare also counterbalances a considerable amount of “trading with the enemy.”[40]

How far States have transcended rules of civilized warfare in this century needs no elaboration here. In the modern era of total war, combined with the technology of total destruction, the very idea of keeping war limited to the State apparati seems even more quaint and obsolete than the original Constitution of the United States.

When States are not at war, agreements are often necessary to keep frictions at a minimum. One doctrine that has gained curiously wide acceptance is the alleged “sanctity of treaties.” This concept is treated as the counterpart of the “sanctity of contract.” But a treaty and a genuine contract have nothing in common. A contract transfers, in a precise manner, titles to private property. Since a government does not, in any proper sense, “own” its territorial area, any agreements that it concludes do not confer titles to property. If, for example, Mr. Jones sells or gives his land to Mr. Smith, Jones’s heir cannot legitimately descend upon Smith’s heir and claim the land as rightfully his. The property title has already been transferred. Old Jones’s contract is automatically binding upon young Jones, because the former had already transferred the property; young Jones, therefore, has no property claim. Young Jones can only claim that which he has inherited from old Jones, and old Jones can only bequeath property which he still owns. But if, at a certain date, the government of, say, Ruritania is coerced or even bribed by the government of Waldavia into giving up some of its territory, it is absurd to claim that the governments or inhabitants of the two countries are forever barred from a claim to reunification of Ruritania on the grounds of the sanctity of a treaty. Neither the people nor the land of northwest Ruritania are owned by either of the two governments. As a corollary, one government can certainly not bind, by the dead hand of the past, a later government through treaty. A revolutionary government which overthrew the king of Ruritania could, similarly, hardly be called to account for the king’s actions or debts, for a government is not, as is a child, a true “heir” to its predecessor’s property.

[Malachi]

This would obviously be suicide.

rarely are questions of warfare so simple as to be answered by a direct comparison of metrics. its not as though the rebels hadnt accomplished clandestine boarding missions before. a two prong attack on the power supply and the command apparatus would be appropriate.

[Merlin]

I do remember the full context, but I seem to remember that upon destruction, the Death Star was just about to destroy another planet. So, Luke had this, and only this choice: let the Death Start fire and obliterate some heavy billions (or was it some primitive planet, with fatalities running in the tens of millions at most?), or let the Death Start itself be obliterated?

To put this in a more earthly context: suppose you have a submarine manned by conscripts (there not by choice) about to launch a ballistic missile that will destroy [insert city dear to you here], and you have the option to tact-nuke them firs. Will you?

But of course gentlemen. Well done, Luke.

Note that the point of contention, as I see it, isn’t whether there were innocent folk on the Death Star. The point is whether it is right to shoot through a human shield to kill a suicide bomber about to level a building. The innocence of the human shield here is regrettable, but beside the point.

[Bert_B]

The Death Star is pleasing as in so far as an accomplishment of modern architecture and science, for visual reasons I would not destroy it, because it’s literally a star of death, and that’s an amazing feat to accomplish, and it’s artistically pleasing, but I can understand why someone would want to shoot a laser down an exhaust shaft to blow up the entire thing. It would be too costly in the short run, but the Rebels should have turned it into a disarmed museum of intergalactic war history.

[Merlin]

Also, you could use its giant gravity field to catch errant asteroids for mining. Wouldn’t that be something?

[abirkmanis]

I do not think the mass of the DS was considerable enough for that.

It is estimated to be around 100-200 km across: http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWdeathstarsizes-2.html.

Even if it is solid metal, its mass is much less than that of the Earth’s Moon.

[Meistro]

He murdered people. The murder is mitigated by the circumstances that compelled him to commit this murder. He should be brought up on charges and acquitted or punished lightly.

[Meistro]

It is wrong to shoot through a human shield to kill a suicide bomber. A’s aggression against B does not justify B’s aggression against C. But we can consider B’s motivation in his aggression against C when deciding what punishment, if any, he should face for his actions.

[Merlin]

It is indeed wrong for the human shield to die, but not for me to shoot through him. It is the suicide bomber who has put him in this most unfortunate position and I think we can agree that it is the suicide bomber who is responsible for murder in this case. Otherwise, saying that you are not allowed to kill them and should instead see how the bomb goes off (killing the humans shied, among many others) just feels wrong on many levels.

Now, the actual case will devolve into a discussion of whether there was anything that could have been done to spare the poor fellow, such as shooting at the knees or such, but in principle, assuming no other course of action was available in the heat of the moment, shooting through the hostage would be the right thing to do.