For: Emperor PALPITINE, Imperial Headquarters
Via: Darth VADER, Mustafar
From: Moff Tyler, Imperial Inspector General
Your Immanence,
Per your request, a full investigation of the circumstances surrounding the loss of Star Station DS-1 (Commonly Known as the DEATH STAR) has been concluded. The two persons best able to answer questions related to the loss of DS-1, Grand Moff Tarkin and Director Krennic, are unavailable for questioning; in their absence, we present the following
Both our forces and the Enemy were in possession of the Death Star Plans at the time of the simultaneous solar flares, mining accident, and gas leak on Scarif, resulting in our outpost’s destruction.
By the time of the battle of Yavin IV, the Rebels had determined the Station’s critical weakness. Our forces had not.
In air-to-air combat, the empire enjoyed a strongly favorable exchange ratio, with only 3 of the attacking rebel ships surviving the battle.
While it is tempting to attribute the rebel success to The Force, we conclude that the rebels were more successful because they found the thermal exhaust, and this is attributed to their better computing architecture.
Our computing infrastructure centers on:
Low number of arduously selected programs centrally controlled.
Security restrictions against running user-written scripts (sometimes called Macros)
Programming choices based on accessibility and ease of use to most Imperial troopers, ignoring the desires of Galen Erso’s scientists on Eadu (Note: Galen Erso was not available for interview).
Imperial coding is the best; we all know it’s the best, Lord Vader tells us it’s the best all the time. Since we have the best computers and best scientists, we never travel to other systems - in fact, we summon their programmers here, usually to tell them they’re wrong.
This is very different than
While the rebellion appears to be constantly on the verge of collapse, there are some differences in their computing. Due to the efforts of our spy, Captain COLBY, we have learned the following:
Rebel scientists run whatever programs they want on their machines. While this alienates some members of the rebellion, each scientist is able to employ whatever languages they feel appropriate to the task at hand.
Rebel scientists are encouraged to journey to outlying systems - sometimes as far as the planet Dplyr, to find new techniques. Rebel leaders seem to be at best indifferent to what software and algorithms rebel scientists use, provided that they get answers.
Rebel scientists are based with the fleet. If the fleet is shot down, the rebel scientists are shot down too.
IT IS FOR THIS REASON that the Rebels were able to determine the single port that would cause Station DS-1 to fail out of tens of thousands of possibilities. Had the Empire been as adept at solving large-scale optimization attacker/defender models, we could have easily defended this, or simply covered it with reinforced plasteel.
By your Grace,
MOFF TYLER