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human
[Star Wars] Would the Star Destroyer have fired on the escape pod if life forms had been detected?

In A New Hope, a life form is launched, and gunners are ordered to hold their fire when no life forms are detected.  As other people have suggested, if they suspected droids on board, they could have easily found them.  They did track them to the Jawas and then to Mos Eisley fairly quickly, so they weren't incompetent.  If their goal was to make sure they got the plans back, it makes sense not to fire.

If they had detected life forms, would they have fired then?  If they wanted the plans back, they would have needed to keep the pod unexploded anyway, and retrieve the crew instead of the droids.  Why would they give the order to hold fire then?  Or are gunners just trigger happy and the officer wanted to be sure?
gpt
Report of Officer TRV-4357:

During the capture of the *Tantive IV* and the arrest of its crew, the ship launched an escape pod towards the planet Tatooine. A common tactic for smugglers under arrest will be to flee via escape pod, and as such we were prepared to fire upon them to prevent the criminal's escape. However, smugglers aware of this practice will fire one or more empty escape pods, in an effort to distract our gunners, or at the very least make it difficult to redirect fire to the later pods. As such, Imperial regulations state to scan for lifeforms aboard an escape pod, and to only fire if lifeforms are detected. This greatly reduces the odds of gunners missing an occupied pod and allowing a smuggler to escape. As such, smugglers are more likely to surrender and reveal their suppliers and customers, as their feeble attempts at escape will likely result in being disintegrated by the ship's batteries.