The Alderaan Argument

The Alderaan Argument refers to the debate on how the Death Star destroyed Alderaan.

This incidcent occurs in Star Wars: A New Hope, wherein the Death Star I's SuperLaser fired a short blast at the planet and the planet shortly thereafter exploded violently. The speed of expansion of the fragments from the planet, given the range the shot was taken at, seemed to indicate a massive amount of energy beyond the minimum needed to destroy the planet. Further, prior to the actual explosion, a wide area above the atmosphere seemed to 'dissipate' the energy, showing the presence of a planetary shield.

Rebuttals to the Implied Power of the SuperLaser

Rebuttal 1: The Death Star did not directly destroy Alderaan, rather it catalyzed something in/on the planet to have it destroy itself (some chain reaction)

Rebuttal 2: Time-Compression was used when recording the explosion, resulting in a more violent-seeming explosion than actually occurred

Rebuttal 3: The planet of Alderaan was actually rather lightweight/less-dense than a normal planet; so using earth-like constants makes the energy seem too high.

Counter Arguments

Counter 3: Alderaan is seen in Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith to have a gravity that is at least comparable to that of earth's. This is shown by the fact that (1) it is able to maintain a gravitational pull strong enough to retain its own atmosphere (2) Humans and infants are able to stand on the surface and walk normally without either floating away or getting crushed by immense gravitational forces. In order to have a gravitational field comparable to that of earth, it must be equivalently massive to earth, so this rebuttal is dismissed.

This is often used as an attempt to devalue the actual destructive power of the Death Star. Many variants of this theory call for the gravitational binding energy of the planet to be ignored.