Ephemera

You were the Chosen One! It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them. Bring balance to the force, not leave it in darkness. You were my brother, Anakin! I loved you

Someone on reddit asked about it. And it turns out there’s a logical-ish reason:

all of the other players pair off with their man to prevent anyone else entering into the fight … so it’s a form of self policing. 

[…] The players basically want to prevent 2 on 1, etc. fights and by finding a “hugging” partner so there’s no ganging up on one guy, even on accident. They do it because it’s fair. And it’s kind of cute sometimes.

 He has no one to bitch to about it. 

Even the Emperor’s jumped on the superweapon hype train. Even the tolerably-competent officers like Tarkin are all #TeamDeathStar, and then there’s smug assholes like Admiral Motti who just won’t shut up about it, and honestly?

Vader’s probably been on the email CC list for the design since the project started. Years of enduring shitty design and interdepartmental bickering and watching some smarmy asshole in an inferior cloak prance about bloviating about his special superweapon like somebody who has an anime body pillow of the superlaser housing.

And then there’s this one scientist who keeps going on and on about this thermal exhaust problem.

Just. Huge amounts of emails on the subject, going on and on and on about it.

Vader is totally the only person who actually reads these after the first, like, five of them. Everybody else just skims through them with a side of “Seriously, Galen? Another one? Force-dammit, Krennic, couldn’t you have left him on that mudball with his family?” But Vader is bored out of his skull with 90% of his job anyway, and it’s not like he has anything better to do. Besides, viciously judging other people’s design abilities is the closest thing to pass for fun when there aren’t any Rebels to slaughter or armies to curbstomp, and there’s plenty of shit design for the judging.

He spots the flaw in the reactor the first time it appears in the plans.

He’d have shit himself if it wasn’t for the suit.

He promptly makes a bet with himself on whether anybody is going to spot it.

Nobody does.

They’re a pack of idiots. Every last one of them.

Maybe he contemplates telling them for like two-thirds of a second. It would be fun to lord his actual mechanical expertise over that little shit, Krennic.

But then he considers that he can only tell them once, and what if it were after the thing blew itself right the fuck up, what if that? He can still point out the flaw, and he can throw everyone’s stupidity right in their stupid faces, but also there’ll be no more Death Star.

So when Galen Erso sends out Thermal Exhaust Problem Analysis Report #6,109 and buried in paragraph 37 is a suggestion of an extra exhaust port, and Krennic responds with “SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT YOUR GODDAMN THERMAL EXHAUST PORT, GALEN, I DON’T GIVE A SHIT!” and Erso goes, “So you approve the solution?” and Krennic goes “S***** F*** LKJDGJFKL!!!!LJF$%#$DJF! YES!” Vader saves the email exchange for posterity and is downright cheerful the rest of the week.

True, he acts in its defense, chasing down Rebels when the plans are stolen. Of course he does. They’re Rebels, and hunting them down is his job and one of the very few pleasures of his existence. But it’s not for the Death Star. In fact, if one of them were to escape with its plans, and hide them successfully, and keep their location secret through torture and worse, and if another of them were to fly a starfighter well enough to keep from being destroyed long enough to drop a torpedo through that vulnerable exhaust port and touch off that reactor instability and turn the whole massive, ridiculous, wasteful, absurd, and vaguely insulting contraption into so much spacedust …

… well …

… oops.

Vader’s only regret about the whole affair is that Krennic predeceased it and is therefore unavailable for gloating to.

Also, seeing the “unfortunate” picture, makes me imagine a cartoonish situation where Vader talks with Sidious, who is like: “How did you not know that?! You are the best mechanic there is. That’s why you’ve been part of the ones in charge. How could you miss that flaw?!!!!” And Vader just “sips” from this tiny cup of tea like: “Unfortunate.” all calm and collected while Sheev is losing it over there: “What are you doing? YOU CAN’T DRINK!!!”

my only sunshine

you make me happy

when skies are gray

you’ll never know dear

how much i love you

please dont take

my sunshine away