The Alderaan Argument

The Alderaan Argument is an attempt to argue that the Death Star did not directly destroy Alderaan, and that it simply catalyzed something in/on the planet to have it destroy itself (That is, a Chain reaction rather than direct energy transfer). This is often used as an attempt to de-value the actual destructive power of the Death Star. Many variants of this theory call for the gravitational bind of the planet to be ignored.