History Headscratchers / RogueOne

* Why did the rebels need to destroy Scarif's planetary shield in order for the Death Star data to be transmitted, even though the security complex had one of the most powerful communications satellites in the galaxy? And how could Bodhi's jerry-rigged communication system (the one that required connecting that giant cable) send a signal through the shield to the Alliance flagship, but the massive communications satellite could not?

* How did Mon Mothma age 20 years in a few days?

** It's pretty clear he was barely holding on to life as it was and they had seconds to get out. With two poorly made cybernetic legs, a cane and being incapable of running, he pretty much felt IWillOnlySlowYouDown.

** But the shield immediately went down when the star destroyer crashed into the station. Wouldnt that mean it is generating it? Plus those Y wings disabled a star destroyer, something that was much larger and had its own shields. They could have easily damaged or destroyed the ironically unsheilded shield generator.

** I took this as providing an explanation for why stormtroopers seem so lousy at aiming. The first guy to run for the radio controls was shot almost immediately, but when a force sensitive steps out, the blasts are defelcted or the minds of the stormtroopers are confused or something.

** The Force as always been about using insticts and has constantly been a shorthand for BecauseDentinySaysSo. Even in non-Force users the Force is a form of life itself. It stands to reason having faith in its can give you the hope to achieve seemingly impossible things.

* Why did Tarkin and Krennik destroy one of the few places in the galaxy where they could harvest Kyber crystals?

** I got the feeling that seeing Jyn made him realize how far he had fallen from what he used to be and wanting to die as he used to be.

* Why did Saw Gerrera voluntarily stay behind? I could see why he needed to die there for dramatic purposes, but why not trapped beneath rubble or something?

* Why were the X-Wings targeting the shield itself instead of targeting the the shield generator? The generator was obviously unshielded because they are shown destroying turrets on it. Plus the star destroyer crashing into the generator is what finally takes the shield down.

** Chirrut has never claimed to be a Jedi, and most certainly wasn't an "official" one. Whether he was actually Force sensitive or not is up for debate. Also, when the Death Troopers were firing at him, the battlefield was already heavily obscured with smoke, so a possible non-Force answer would be that the Death Troopers just couldn't see him clearly at that point.

*** I believe that how gravity wells affect a ship and their hyperspace jumping capabilities varies greatly from ship to ship due to a number of factors, but logically speaking, the bigger a ship, the more difficult it is for it to jump from a planet's surface, similar to the understanding of "The bigger they are, the harder they fall". The U-Wing isn't very big, plus the Jedha was hit by the turbo laser from the Death Star. Granted, the laser didn't destroy the planet, but who knows how it has affected the natural gravitational forces of it. And the last point would be that the in-universe argument against jumping from could be a guideline of safe piloting and not an established scientific understanding, like how companies selling their own products will advise against using unlicensed accessories as they could damage their products. So one can certainly try to make the jump from planetside, but it'd be a very risky move. Given the circumstances of what was happening on Jedha, I'd also recommend warping out from planet side at that moment.

** Chirrut has never claimed to be a Jedi, and most certainly wasn't an "official" one. Whether he was actually Force sensitive or not is up for debate. Also, when Chirrut the Death Troopers were firing at him, the battlefield was already heavily obscured with smoke, so a possible non-Force answer would be that the Death Troopers just couldn't see him clearly at that point.

* What's the thing with Chirrut? Is he a Jedi since he can sense thoughts and whatnot? And did he somehow cause all the Death Troopers to completely miss him while he's walking towards them?

* How did the U-Wing hyperspace out of the wave of destruction caused by the Death Star's shot? They were very close to the planet and even in new canon, planet's gravity wells prevent jumping from so close.

** In current canon, the design of the station originated with the Geonosians. Galen Erso was brought in to get the main weapon to work, as the project had become stuck.

* So has the designer of the Death Star been retconned? Bevel Lemelisk was stated in multiple sources to be the architect of the Death Star, so has that been changed to Galen Erso? Or did Erso just do some exterior modifications?

** It may also be that the plans weren't the only thing on the hard drive. We don't fully see what Jyn does, so she could have selected the file off the hard drive to queue up for transmission. A thumb drive is small and can hold a lot, but it can't hold as much as a modern disk drives.

** The facility at Scarif is an archive, and as such probably designed for long term storage of information. The hard drive Jyn and Cassian pull from the archives is probably designed to preserve data for an undetermined period of time without corruption. The Rebels don't need such rugged data storage to transport the files back to Yavin 4.

During the Rebel attack on the planetary shield generator, a squadron of X-Wings were trying to get through the gate before the shield activated, though a few of them did not make it through and had to pull off the attempt. My question would be why didn't the X-Wings fold their S-foils(the in-universe name of their wings) down while making that attempt, as in-universe (at least, according to video-game canon featuring X-Wings), folding down the S-foils allows them to increase their velocity and acceleration.
* The old Rogue Squadron games technically are no longer canon, so there's nothing to confirm X-Wings are any faster with their S-foils closed.

How come the schematics were so large they needed to be stored on a huge hard drive, but then the Rebels download them onto a small diskette?

* The old Rogue Squadron games technically are no longer canon, so there's nothing to confirm X-Wings are any faster with their S-foils closed.

During the Rebel attack on the planetary shield generator, a squadron of X-Wings were trying to get through the gate before the shield activated, though a few of them did not make it through and had to pull off the attempt. My question would be why didn't the X-Wings fold their S-foils(the in-universe name of their wings) down while making that attempt, as in-universe (at least, according to video-game canon featuring X-Wings), folding down the S-foils allows them to increase their velocity and acceleration.

During the Revel attack on the planetary shield generator, a squadron of X-Wings were trying to get through the gate before the shield activated, though a few of them did not make it through and had to pull off the attempt. My question would be why didn't the X-Wings fold their S-foils(the in-universe name of their wings) down while making that attempt, as in-universe (at least, according to video-game canon featuring X-Wings), folding down the S-foils allows them to increase their velocity and acceleration.