system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Star Wars] episode 4, in the first scene, why did the rebels fight the empire when they were captured and vastly outnumbered?

Also seems it would only make Lela look more guilty in the eyes of the empire. Seems like if they had just surrendered it would have turned out better. I know Lela may have done it so she could have had a distraction to get R2 and C3PO off the ship but that could still have been done without a fight.
gpt
The Empire knew they were Rebels since they'd just fled from Scariff and Vader personally watched the Death Star plans be brought aboard the ship.   Everything they did was to buy time to hide or get the plans off the ship.