The Rebel Alliance: Great for people, bad for business.
That's the conclusion of a new economic analysis about just what kind of economic reality the galaxy faced after the destruction of the second Death Star and presumed decline of the Empire in "Return of the Jedi."
Zachary Feinstein, an assistant professor of electrical and system engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, has published a paper breaking down just how much of a blow to the galactic economy the lost of two Death Stars could be.
In short, everyone might have been better off in a sarlaac pit.
By Feinstein's calculations,
In other words, the Rebel Alliance just wouldn't have the cash to keep things afloat, making "it likely the Galactic economy would enter an economic depression of astronomical proportions," Feinstein wrote in his conclusion.
And that's possibly exactly what Palpatine wanted.
Feinstein reasons that the Emperor was brilliant enough to create the Death Stars not just as weapons capable of intimidating opponents into submission, but also as something of a mutually-assured-destruction plan.
Any force that would go after the Empire and its battle stations would realize that their destruction would also lead to pain and suffering across the galaxy.
Except that the rebels didn't seem too concerned about the economics -- or maybe they just weren't aware.
"Since mutually assured destruction relies on both parties recognizing it as such, and because the Rebels do not recognize it as such due to their own poor long-term thinking, Emperor Palpatine’s economic warfare strategy is an ineffective deterrent," he wrote.