First of all, we’d like to wish our readers a Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year. During the Christmas weekend, I had the pleasure to watch Star Wars: The Force Awakens. (Beware! This article is full of spoilers, and you may want to save it for later if you haven’t seen the new episode yet.)
While I was watching the movie, I couldn’t help but notice just how many obvious security design flaws could be spotted, even by someone who isn’t involved in the security field. Probably the most glaring flaw of them all is how something so technologically superior as the Star Killer Base would be so easy to infiltrate and destroy. Here are 5 of the most apparent security issues and the design flaws of the star killer base.
1.Lack of CCTVs
There is a scene in which the Millennium Falcon is inside another ship. Fin is caught in the tentacles of some alien beast and Ray saves him with a help of live CCTV footage, which helps her to shut the right door just in time to cut off monster’s tentacles and allow Fin to escape. Yet, designers of Star Killer Base seem to be completely obvious to the usefulness of CCTV footage for the First Order. As a result, our heroes are able to infiltrate deep into the building and no one is any wiser.
2. Motion Detection?
Even our current CCTV systems have the ability to detect motion and send us alerts. Security personnel can be alerted when motion or audio is detected by sensors and cameras can increase their resolution when triggered. Shouldn’t the technologically superior First Order be able to
harness such technology? How was Ray, Han Solo, and others able to sneak around without getting detected?
3. Security Design Flaw – Redundancy
One of the fundamentals of security and disaster recovery is redundancy. It is appalling that there is no backup power storage for the solar energy stored in the planet. Shouldn’t the First Order have built more storage facilities for the stored energy? That way, if the storage facility is under
attack, its power can be directed to other storage facilities. Also, spreading the stored energy across many storage facilities could potentially save the entire planet from a catastrophic explosion since the energy stored is not
as large.
4. Only one person in charge of shields?
Captain Phasma gets captured by our heroes. They proceed to some random room where they force her to disable all shields. How can she disable shields (something I would think is crucial to the base) remotely? And why is she the only one who is able to do this? Shouldn’t there be others within the hierarchy who monitor shield’ status to prevent something like this from happening? Shouldn’t there be a procedure in place so that it takes 2 or 3 people to control shields?
5. Video Analytics?
It’s the 21st century, people. Video analytics is a reality. Right now, facial recognition is no longer something limited to sci-fi movies. Faces can be picked out in a crowd to alert security personnel of a threat. Why doesn’t the First Order have such technology in place? A photo of Han Solo, Luke
Skywalker, and everyone in the Rebel Alliance can be uploaded into the system so that cameras can pick them out in case they would try to infiltrate the base.
Well, there you have it. 5 security flaws committed by the First Order. Of course, we understand that these decisions were intentionally made by creators of Star Wars to allow for a smooth story progression. It probably wouldn’t be such fun to see our beloved heroes die right on the level 1 of the base, or would it? Maybe if RR Martin takes over the Star Wars storyline then.
