My own humble contribution.
Regards, Ivan
For some unknowable reason, I looked up the figures. The Force.net seems to believe that the population of the Star Wars galaxy is 100 quadrillion. I can't find a casualty table, so we'll use my estimate of 12 billion (which I think is quite reasonable considering the action shown during the movies). If that's true, then the deaths perpetrated by the Empire account for .000012% of the population of the galaxy. Even an extremely liberal estimate of, say, 1 trillion casualities accounts for a rate of .001 % of the galactic population.
Let's compare this with WWII, since the Empire is often labelled the Space Nazis. The total losses in WWII were around 60 million or so (all sides involved). The population of the Earth was about 2.5 billion or so in 1945. The war therefore resulted in the deaths of about 2.4% of the global population.
I'm not sure why I just went through that. None of the above information should be taken too seriously.
Now, it's often assumed that everyone working on the Death Star, especially the unfinished death star of the third film, are all these evil baddies deserving of the righteous ends they meet at the hands of the noble rebels.
But I'm thinking, okay, what about the simple line cook in the sector 5 commissary? Was Luke thinking of HIM when he dropped the photon torpedo? No, he was caught up in the zealoutry of the fanatics around him, he wasn't thinking of the poor, middle-aged guy in the sweat-stained wife beater and hair net who's claim to fame was making Lord Vader's favorite grilled cheese sandwiches. It's even more insidious when you think that not a week earlier (during the first film, at least) Luke was an apolitial little mush head (skull full of mush, as the great one says) on Tattooine.
And yes, given the numbers, the loss of Alderaan does seem pretty minute and insignificant. And, really, it all falls squarely on Leah's shoulders for trying to bluff Tarkin like that.
My own humble contribution.
Regards, Ivan