Tarkin (superweapon)

"&hellip;why hasn't the Empire constructed a second battle station like the Death Star that almost destroyed our base on Yavin? Now we know why: they've been secretly channeling resources into the construction of a weapon that could be far worse!"

- General Carlist Rieekan

The Tarkin was an Imperial superweapon capable of destroying a planet. It was developed by Bevel Lemelisk after the destruction of the first Death Star but before the Battle of Endor.

Description
"Worse than a Death Star?" "I'm afraid so, Commander. They've taken the Death Star's main offensive battery, the ionic cannon&mdash;and have built around it a set of engines and defensive shield generators unmatched by anything we've ever encountered! This weapon has been christened "the Tarkin" and should it ever become operational&mdash;we may as well place our own hands in the Empire's shackles!"

- Commander Luke Skywalker and General Carlist Rieekan

The Tarkin superweapon was a giant planetary-scale battlestation following the same basic principles of the first Death Star battlestation. The Tarkin combined the Death Star's primary offensive battery and massive ionic cannon superlaser, capable of shattering a planet in the same mold as the Death Star's, with a defensive shield generator system and a set of engines. The Tarkin ' s superlaser, comprising a central concave dish encircled by a series of secondary tributary nodes, dominated the battlestation's external superstructure. The awesome size of the Tarkin reduced the Empire's normally-fearsome Star Destroyers to diminutives by comparison. Unlike its predecessor, the Tarkin was constructed without the single design flaw&mdash;an exposed thermal exhaust port&mdash;that led to the Death Star's destruction.

Set back from the forward superlaser dish was the Tarkin ' s central command tower and bridge. The command tower resembled the same trapezoidal design found on Imperial-class Star Destroyers, sans the twin deflector shield generator domes. The bridge, too, resembled the layout of the Imperial-class Star Destroyer in a general sense, with a wide angular viewport and a command walkway. A series of double-tiered seated command stations were circularly-arrayed before the bridge's viewports.

The battlestation's interior was divided into sections and levels identified by letters and numerals&mdash;K-level and sections TH-10 and TH-11, for example. The interior also housed the installation's main power reactor, the primary external tractor beam generator, the escape pod bay, hangar bays hosting the Tarkin ' s starship complement, and the superweapon's complex activating mechanism. A series of service lifts offered rapid vertical transport between the Tarkin ' s many decks.

A stormtrooper guard force patrolled the Tarkin and provided security for the battlestation's sensitive areas, restricting access only to those with proper clearance. The Tarkin also maintained a TIE/ln starfighter contingent for close-range aerial support. Non-military construction vehicles aboard the Tarkin included cargo vessels and cargo trolleys.

History
"So that's it. The problem is simple&mdash;the solution isn't! Since the Tarkin was built without the single flaw that allowed us to stop the Death Star, a direct attack would be suicide! Our only chance for success is to get a small group of commandos inside the Tarkin&mdash;and destroy it from within!"

- General Carlist Rieekan

Design origins and destruction of Aeten II
The Tarkin was a direct descendant, in both form and function, of the Empire's first Death Star, destroyed in the Battle of Yavin in 0 BBY. Incensed at the loss of his weapon of doom, Emperor Palpatine ordered engineer Bevel Lemelisk, the Death Star's original designer, to produce a resurrected Death Star, even larger and more powerful than the first. Lemelisk first set to designing a superlaser weapons testbed, similar in principle to the first Death Star prototype constructed in the Maw Installation, that corrected the mistakes learned from the first Death Star's design with technological refinements. Imperial officers eventually christened this weapons testbed, essentially a scaled-down version of the Death Star, the "Tarkin," in memory of the late Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin, the Death Star's former commanding officer.

After Lemelisk's design team completed their work on the Tarkin, they began designing the Death Star's successor. Meanwhile, construction on the superlaser testbed began in the Patriim system, above the garrison planet Hockaleg. The Empire secretly funneled resources into the Tarkin ' s construction under the nose of the Rebel Alliance.

As the Tarkin neared completion in 3 ABY, following the Battle of Hoth, the superlaser testbed became a symbol of intrigue for Grand Admiral Martio Batch. The Emperor had tasked Batch with developing a working cloaking device, since cloaking technology had become almost non-existent in the galaxy by the time of the Galactic Civil War. Batch succeeded only in creating a cloak that suffered from "double blindness," meaning that those onboard the cloaked starship could not see out. To create a fully functional cloak, Batch required access to the once-common stygium crystals found in the mines of the hidden planet Aeten II, but the mines had long since run dry. To solve the problem, Batch requisitioned the Tarkin ' s superlaser.

Batch pulled rank to divert the Tarkin to the Aeten system in the Dreighton Nebula of the Outer Rim Territories, where he used the superlaser to shatter Aeten II, thus releasing millions of the planet's remaining stygium crystals into free-floating space. Thanks to the Tarkin, Batch used the freed stygium crystals to recreate the classic stygium screen cloak in conjunction with his prototype TIE Phantom project.

As it neared completion, a lone X-wing pilot was able to inform the Alliance of the Tarkin before he was killed. A commando team led by Luke Skywalker was sent aboard the Millennium Falcon, piloted by Lando Calrissian, to the Tarkin, where they would destroy its reactor with a single proton grenade and a few blasters. However, their plan would almost be compromised by a number of Imperial officers who planned to kill Darth Vader, whose iron discipline they feared would eventually kill them all.

Vader, however, exited the Tarkin before their plan could take effect. Princess Leia Organa wired the superlaser to fire on itself, and the commando team escaped aboard the Millennium Falcon, before the Tarkin literally fired on itself and exploded.

The Darksaber project carried out by Durga Besadii Tai years later was similar to the Tarkin.

Behind the scenes
The Tarkin was created by David Michelinie and Walt Simonson.

Appearances

 * Star Wars 51: Resurrection of Evil
 * Star Wars 52: To Take The Tarkin
 * Star Wars 55: Plif