The notes Harvan had made on Vader's description of the destruction of Alderaan covered some ten thousand words, all of which felt utterly inadequate to the subject. The bold facts were clear enough and matched exactly with the Princess' own account as held on file by the Alliance. Grand Moff Tarkin had initiated the act of mass murder as a demonstration of what it meant to defy the Empire – the ultimate expression of his doctrine of rule-by-fear. This had the additional advantage of providing adequate motivation for Leia Organa to betray the Rebellion, at least in theory. The Princess had gambled that under such circumstances, the Empire would believe a half-lie but her loss was due to a stacked deck, not a failing in her bluff. Tarkin would have destroyed the planet regardless, just to prove that the Death Star was fully operational.
Throughout it all, Vader supported the plan entirely. He distrusted the Death Star as a concept, held it in contempt, even. He considered it an ultimately hollow construction, vulnerable and transient compared to the might of the Force. But ruling by fear was something he understood well. The galaxy cowed by the consequences of disobedience was his master's grand vision and he willingly – and expertly – imposed it. He admitted as much freely and without hesitation. Even when it came to describing the act of forcing the Princess to watch her home die, his voice did not falter in its weary, methodical pattern. It was necessary, or so he believed at the time. He offered no apology for that, whether he was ashamed of it or not.
That was not what had stuck in Harvan's mind though, not what made him feel cold inside to think about it, even now.
When Vader described the actual moment of Alderaan's destruction, he did not talk about a super laser cutting through a planetary crust. He spoke instead of the life wiped out in the blast. "The Death Star fired and every being on Alderaan died in seconds. Their deaths radiated through the Force itself. I . . . felt their fear. Their pain. Perhaps I was too quick to dismiss the weapon. I wondered as much afterwards. There is an old Jedi concept, one I had heard once but never paid much attention to, that there were events violent enough to have left scars on the Force itself. After Alderaan I began to wonder if that was not the true reason the Emperor wanted a way to kill his enemies so thoroughly and completely. A way to attack the Force itself."
And that, for Vader, had been the concern. That his master might have created a way to strike at the source of both their powers. Yet if what he said was true, then he had not just witnessed the deaths of Alderaan's people at a distance – he had actually felt them die and shared in their terror. On a personal level, the idea of continuing to serve the Empire after experiencing something so horrific revolted Harvan. From a more detached perspective, it demonstrated how numb Vader was to the suffering of others and possibly the reason why. Going by his own words, he could sense the pain he inflicted every time he lashed out. How long had it taken for him to become inured to that, so much so that scale and numbers no longer mattered?
The Princess was right. Regret was not enough to balance what Vader had done. Yet to break through such a staggering level of desensitisation and spur him to feel even that much was an achievement for which Harvan was not sure Luke Skywalker received enough credit. Perhaps the scale of that was not lost on a Jedi Knight who could sense the gulf separating the old monstrous Vader from the man sitting in his cell staring at the wall, however wide or narrow that gap truly was.
As he compiled the information he had promised, Harvan hoped that that insight would serve the Commander well enough to understand why, where he saw the traces of Anakin Skywalker, his sister saw only the monster.