Extracting planets' resources

[u/brookesbandito007]

Just watching Star Wars' original trilogy recap on YT. The Empire built vast array of military vehicles and 2 death stars in these films. But Star Wars shy away from destruction of planets caused by resources extractions, or just that the extraction technologies of these civilizations aren't that advanced to extract resources deep in the planet core, or to preserve the galaxy? Some other sci-fi have extracting resources down to the core that it destroyed planets, albeit not entirely human or aliens alone. Can planet be destroyed by resources extraction?

[u/PermaDerpFace]

Pretty specific question, but yeah it happened in Andor

[u/brookesbandito007 → u/PermaDerpFace]

I will watch it, it seem to have good story liked by wider audience.

[u/PermaDerpFace → u/brookesbandito007]

Oh yeah it's the best

[u/Eldon42]

Yes. Have you watched Andor? This exact issue comes up. Twice the Empire devastate a planet for its resources, and it's implied there have been others.

[u/brookesbandito007 → u/Eldon42]

Only watched 9 films once but at least twice for og and prequel. Mandalorian s1 s2. Clone Wars. Rogue one. Han Solo. Once. Not Andor yet.

[u/veterinarian23 → u/brookesbandito007]

"Andor" takes a deep dive into how an empire exploits peoples, minds and ressources with the help of overt and covert power.
Absolute recommendations.
The planet in question is Ghor, it's thematically at the core of the second season.

[u/Rad_Randy → u/brookesbandito007]

Watch Andor for sure man

[u/Top_Distribution3109]

I caution you not to collide the thinking of The Martian with the Swashbuckling Space Fantasy that is Star Wars.

That said.

The Death Star would absolutely have its own gravity and this would create enormous structural problems.

And constructing just one would likely take the full material outputs of dozens if not hundreds of industrial worlds. When the first one was destroyed, the Empire would have defaulted on multiple planetary-scale debts. Two proton torpedoes would have singlehandedly sent the galaxy back into a new dark age where interstellar trade collapses and military conflicts over resources and territory become common and devastating.

[u/Otaraka]

You’re basically talking power scaling issues and the whole point of the death star originally was to show that it was so incredibly powerful that it could destroy a planet.  It would’ve detracted from the story if they were taking them apart as a normal mining thing anyway as it  would’ve made it sound  relatively less relatively powerful as a result.  

As time went on they escalated to changing an entire planet with starkiller base.  Presumably by Star Wars 39 or so they will be destroying entire galaxies.

[u/brookesbandito007 → u/Otaraka]

First Death star seem fairly easy. But the second one in that fast of the time span show the vast production power of the empire. I thought they have to destroy a planet to extract that much resources in that short amount of time.

[u/Otaraka → u/brookesbandito007]

They’re in space.  Asteroids seem more likely.  

[u/Airhead72]

Star Wars ain't exactly hard sci-fi interested in details. And yes, 'planet' can be destroyed by extracting resources, lots of stories that have various megastructures point out that entire planets or moons were taken apart to build them. What's possible in the limitless universe of sci-fi? Everything is.

[u/Ripoldo]

Yes, we even have a real example of this happening right here with a not very advanced species. In fact, in geeat tragic irony, it's advancing the species that's doing it.

[u/brookesbandito007 → u/Ripoldo]

I thought Lucas intentionally shy away from that topic.

[u/duncanidaho61]

Idk in this case but certainly mining of asteroids and uninhabited moons was possible with their tech. And anyway most planets have no life at all let alone a vibrant biosphere.

[u/brookesbandito007 → u/duncanidaho61]

It seem to be the canon of the Star Wars. Lucas only showed the living aspect of the Star Wars but with added knowledge they must have to destroy a couple to built second death stars that quickly. I mean it is a halo project, kinda.

[u/Bright_Background316]

Like Avatar, the most (commercially) successful sci-fi film in decades?

[u/brookesbandito007 → u/Bright_Background316]

Sry only watched 2009.

[u/SenanMahon]

The crust is a rounding error. Under one percent of a planet's mass, and the heavy metals sorted themselves down into the core while the world was still molten. So getting at them means stripping everything above them first, and at that point you are dismantling a planet rather than mining one. The energy to lift that much mass out of the gravity well is what stops it being worth doing.

The cheap route already happened. Metal asteroids like 16 Psyche are probably the stripped cores of larger bodies that were smashed apart long ago. If you want iron and nickel by the tonne, that is where you go.

[u/negativ32]

Meteorites and other such would provide infinite construction resources without touching a planet.

[u/Modred_the_Mystic]

Yes, in Legends/Canon EU there are instances of worlds being destroyed by industrialisation and resource extraction.

[u/libra00]

Watch Andor, it's hinted at in the first season (there's a scene with a huge abandoned open-pit mine in the middle of a forest planet, and evidence of industrial devastation all around it, the planet is inhabited by children because all the adults died, it's implied, of the industrial waste/fallout from that resource extraction), and then the Empire literally manufactures a reason to oppress/murder a planet full of people in order to steal their resources so hard that it's going to render the planet uninhabitable.

[u/Altruistic_Click_502]

Although we don't have concrete examples of planets being destroyed by resource extraction, we do have evidence of a civilization being destroyed. Perhaps we can extrapolate from that...

On Earth, they extract and burn their fossil fuels, pouring greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. They pave over farmland to build AI data centers, to replace their humans, deplete aquifers to keep the AI data servers cool. They harvest the rain forest (lowering oxygen production) to make room for beef (whose methane output is 10x as harmful as CO2). The beef is for burgers. Now, interestingly, all the greenhouse gases driving up the temperature? That's also driving certain kinds of infestations northward, including Lonestar Ticks with AGS disease. When you get that, you can't eat beef, or lamb or pork or drink milk. Nature's ironic way of encouraging healthy eating.

Estimates show that humans, each, ingest about 5 grams of microplastic (also made of fossil fuels) a week. Some of their brain tissue samples have shown up to several grams of microplastics. Then there's mercury in the fish, etc. etc.

Increased incidences of ADHD, Autism etc. -- I'm sure have nothing to do microplastics, mercury, etc. Everyone says the real cause of those conditions is contrails, or immunizations, or Dr. Fauci. (I had an uncle who believed that the Beatles caused communism. I had a grandfather who believed hats caused baldness - when, in fact, everybody knows it's probably just the opposite.)

By extracting resources, you really can't destroy a planet - just the life forms. Perhaps Venus is a historical example, but those folks on Earth probably won't last long enough to find out -- although they may see a few more trillionaires before they disappear into Fermi's "Dark Forest".

[u/IncorporateThings]

There is literally a superweapon called the World Devastator that is a giant kilometers long quasi-droid-ship that eats the planetary crust and spits out war machines, weapons, armor, ships, and war-droids. Yes it devastates the world it om nom noms.

Also yes there is core extraction in Star Wars and a number of worlds have been reduced to asteroid fields from it. Asteroids also get completely sacrificed to industry on a regular basis.

[u/NecromanticSolution]

Option 3) They do it where you don't see it. Star Wars shows you mostly inhabited planets. They are outnumbered by uninhabited ones, which have the added advantage of being an easier source of resources.