DS-1 Orbital Battle Station

"That's no moon. It's a space station."

- Obi-Wan Kenobi, upon seeing the Death Star for the first time.

The Death Star, previously known as the Ultimate Weapon and also codenamed Sentinel Base, was a moon-sized battle station constructed by the Galactic Empire after the defeat of the Separatists in the Clone Wars. It boasted a primary weapon with sufficient firepower to destroy an entire planet with a single shot.

Touted by its command staff as "the ultimate power in the universe," the Death Star was destroyed by Rebel pilot Luke Skywalker in a single X-wing starfighter.

Origins
"&laquo;The Jedi must not find our designs for the Ultimate Weapon. If they find out what we are planning to build, we're doomed.&raquo;" "I will take the designs with me to Coruscant. They will be much safer there&hellip;with my Master."

- Poggle the Lesser and Count Dooku

As early as the outbreak of the Clone Wars, plans for the station had already been drawn up by its Separatist designers, the Geonosians. With the Republic's clone army invading Geonosis, Geonosian leader Poggle the Lesser turned the designs over to the Separatist head of state, Count Dooku, for safekeeping. Unknown to Poggle, Dooku was also secretly the Sith apprentice of Darth Sidious&mdash;the secret Sith Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic.

Construction on the massive station evidently began sometime during the Clone Wars, having partially completed a framework by the time the war came to an end. With the Separatists defeated and their leaders killed, the Ultimate Weapon project was appropriated by the nascent Galactic Empire.

Completion and demonstration
The massive construction project was completed nearly twenty years later, and at some point was rechristened as the Death Star. Though the Emperor's right-hand man was Darth Vader, command of the battle station was instead granted to Governor Wilhuff Tarkin, a high-ranking member of the military hierarchy. For a time, during Tarkin's oversight, the project was known under the codename "Sentinel Base."

It was around this time that Imperial forces commanded by Darth Vader captured Imperial Senator and Rebel sympathizer, Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan. Organa had received the technical readouts for the Death Star from Rebel agents, and intended to pass them along to her allies.

As a high-value prisoner, Organa was moved to a detention block aboard the Death Star, where she was interrogated in order to learn the location of the Rebellion's secret base. Faced with her considerable resistance to Imperial interrogation techniques, Tarkin opted to try a different approach: intimidation. In a move calculated to force Organa to reveal the Rebel base, Tarkin threatened to use the the station's primary weapon to destroy her homeworld. Though she ostensibly relented, Tarkin ordered the attack to move forward anyway, in order to demonstrate the military power that the Empire now held. In a matter of moments, the Death Star destroyed the planet Alderaan, leaving no survivors.

Afterward, it was revealed that Organa had lied in her admission. Changing tactics once again, Vader and Tarkin conspired to allow Organa to be rescued by a group of outlaws, in order to follow them back to the Rebel base.

Destruction
The Death Star pursued Organa and her allies to the Yavin system, where the Rebel base was located on Yavin 4. Having identified a weakness in the station's design, the Rebels scrambled their starfighters in a desperate attempt to destroy the station before it could bring its weapon to bear on Yavin 4.

The station's defenses, including turbolaser emplacements and TIE fighters, destroyed the majority of the Rebel fighters, but ultimately one proved successful. Piloted by Tatooine native Luke Skywalker, a single X-wing starfigher was able to fire a pair of proton torpedoes down a small thermal exhaust shaft. The torpedoes destroyed the Death Star's main reactor, causing the entire station to explode.

Legacy
Undeterred by the loss of such a major asset, the Empire forged ahead and began construction on Death Star II, a second, more powerful battle station.

Design
The design of the station was spheroid, with a large concave dish in the northern hemisphere making up the superlaser emitter. The Death Star was so large in diameter that it was sometimes mistaken for a small moon at first glance.

The station's equator was comprised of numerous docking ports of various sizes, all supported by extraordinarily powerful tractor beam emitters, and guarded by turbolaser emplacements.

Armaments
The most prominent weapon emplacement on the Death Star was its superlaser&mdash;a weapon with sufficient firepower to destroy an entire planet. Though impressive in both size and destructive power, the superlaser was only fired once, and only on a fixed target. It is unknown if its targeting capabilities were more dynamic than that.

In addition to its superlaser, the surface of the Death Star was also peppered with countless pivoting turbolaser batteries. As the station's defenses, these were installed in order to repel a large-scale fleet attack, rather than fend off individual starfighters.

Power
The station was powered by a hypermatter reactor.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones
 * Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith
 * Tarkin
 * Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope
 * Escape from Darth Vader
 * The Adventures of Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight
 * Heir to the Jedi
 * Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back
 * Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi