Designing the Death Star

[nancylebov]

At this point, I like to think the single point of failure (possibly multiple single points of failure) was put in by utilitarian (it's worthwhile for the few to die for the many) engineer-architects, possibly enslaved or at least trapped into their work.

These single points of failure were sold to their pointy-haired bosses as a way of saving money by not having redundancy and safety measures.

Hubris could also be involved-- a belief that the other side isn't able to get our blueprints and/or is too stupid to understand them.

And speaking of time and change and hubris.... what would war and diplomacy look like if keeping secrets were effectively impossible?

Comments

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

My wife believes that the single point of failure was a known problem, and that what Artoo smuggled out of the Death Star was not simply the plans, but also the engineering and QA database and tech discussions. The rebels didn't have enough time to do the kind of full analysis that you'd expect would be necessary to turn up that problem on their own -- she thinks that the rebels just looked through the "closed" bug reports, and looked for something that would be exploitable.

So, the reactor needed a vent port, which makes a point of vulnerability. But it WAS ray-shielded, so someone clearly knew that it WAS a vulnerable point. And surface defenses were placed to make sure that no capital ship could get close enough to do a particle or torpedo attack.

She's sold me on this notion: for whatever reason, it's necessary for Star Wars Universe reactors to be able to vent to space. If this venting doesn't happen, the reactor blows up. If you shove stuff INTO the vent, the reactor blows up even WORSE, because it's like the reactor did the opposite of venting.

You can't particle shield the vent, because, if you did, it wouldn't be a vent any more. Whatever it is that the vent is venting would be blocked.

So they did whatever they could.

I don't really think of it as a design failure. I think it was an actual limitation of the technology, and that the Empire did the best they could.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

That's reasonable, though less emotionally satisfying than my theories.

I assume there's some technical reason why you couldn't have a flickering particle shield that would let particles out, but never leave an interval long enough for a ship to get in.

Does your wife post that sort of thing anywhere where I might read it?

[madfilkentist]

I'd wonder why they couldn't add a sharp S-curve that would keep spaceships (and meteors) from getting in.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

No; on April 1, a couple decades ago now, she put it into the quality assurance/bug report database at Lotus. As a Class 1/Security Vulnerability report. And included the entire followup discussion of how serious a security hole this was, and how it could be patched without losing functionality.

Ray shielding and placing it at the end of a long trench were deemed appropriate measures, and the she marked the bug report CLOSED/RESOLVED.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Um. I'm wrong. Aparently, Lis DID put it online, and Selinite found it and linked to it.

[selenite.livejournal.com]

Yep, that's my theory too.

[madfilkentist]

I posted my comment above before reading your post. Really. :)