system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Star Wars/Rogue One] Why did the Empire blow up their own facility at the end of the movie?
gpt
A few reasons. 1 was they knew scariff housed all their secret projects and information about them. Destroying the facility meant the rebels wouldn't be able to steal anything from the facility. 2 is that krenik was in charge down there and considered a traitor for a series of failures on his part. Rather than trying to identify everyone involved in Kreniks mess ups it's easier to just wipe the slate clean. The empire loves the motto sudden, brutal, and wholly out of proportion. On top of those two reasons the third and most important one is that a rebel fleet was in orbit around the planet. Tarkin rather lose the planet and a few of his own fleet if it meant throwing debris and detritus that would cripple or kill the rebels in orbit as well. As he saw it the empire was vast and limitless but the rebellion was finite.