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When PCs are separated in the game, one way of handling it is to separate the players into different rooms, to keep knowledge quarantined and avoid players acting on information that they only know out of character. This is inconvenient, of course, as the GM needs to run back and forth between rooms, handling twice as many things while trying to prevent half the players getting bored.
The other way to handle it is just to play things out together and rely on players not to use out-of-character knowledge. This works about as well as any other time that players shouldn't use out-of-character knowledge. In other words, not particularly great - but at least you're used to it.
Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)
Hmmm. As it's highly doubtful that past-shooting gigantic death beams actually exist in Star Wars.... I'd say that this attack is going to fail to fire. Probably with a similar set-up to Episode IV. If the beam does fire though, for the in-game side at least, I notice that General Hux hasn't asked for the calculations to be done using historical records to avoid another Hosnian base episode. That'd at least give the GM an out to avoid messing up the game too badly. For the movie? I'm not sure how D'Qar could avoid getting hit. Maybe if there's other targets that have been mentioned, one of those could be hit instead. It'd be really stupid if a planet-exploding beam was blocked by a dense but thin ring of orbiting rocks, even if that'd be one of the better long term defensive measures to use.
Transcript
Unidentified Male First Order Officer 2: General, we’ve identified the source of the attack as a base on D’Qar, in the Ileenium system.
General Hux: Ha! We have them. Prepare to fire the Cataclysm Beam. Target, D’Qar!
Unidentified Male First Order Officer 2: Beam will be ready to fire in five minutes.
General Hux: Five minutes? Is there any danger this attack will disable the weapon?
Unidentified Male First Order Officer 2: None whatsoever. They’re targeting one of six power stations. We have more than enough energy to hit D’Qar.
General Hux: Excellent. We destroy it in the past and they’ll never even be able to launch this attack!
{meanwhile, Allan and BB-8 are firing at parts of the hexagon interior}
[SFX]: Pow! Pow!
[SFX]: Boom!
[SFX]: zooooomm...
[SFX]: Pow! Boom!
BB-8: Er. Should we reconsider our target?
Allan: No!
BB-8: Because that’s out-of-character knowledge?
Allan: No, they’re probably trying to trick us!
[SFX]: Boom!