Executor-class Star Dreadnought/Legends

Executor-class Star Dreadnought "With the Executor under my command, I will be the ultimate power in the universe!"

- Admiral Kendal Ozzel, only moments before being killed by Darth Vader

The Executor-class Star Dreadnought, popularly known as the Super-class Star Destroyer or Super Star Destroyer, was a heavy warship class in the Star Dreadnought league, often used as command ships in the Imperial Navy. At their prime, they were the largest vessels in the galaxy, second only to the Death Stars, and were almost invincible in combat.

Characteristics


The Executor-class measured 19,000 meters in length. 280,734 Imperial Navy officers, gunners and enlisted men were said to have crewed the vessel. The Executor-class had over 5,000 weapons-emplacements, including turbolasers, assault concussion missile launchers and ion cannons.

Thirteen engines in five thruster banks gave the Executor-class impressive acceleration for its size. A minimum of 144 starfighters were carried; the massive hangar could hold thousands. Its shields were extremely powerful&mdash;equivalent to the total power of a medium star (3.8 × 1026 W).

Sensor domes
The geodesic domes located on and around the Executor's bridge tower (similar to those of Imperial-class Star Destroyers) served dual purposes. Inside the dome were hyperwave transceiver coils for supralight active sensors, while vanes jutting out of the dome served as shield projectors for the surrounding area.

These domes were not vulnerable to external attack as long as the shields remained intact, but concentrated capital ship bombardment&mdash;such as that ordered by Admiral Ackbar during the Battle of Endor&mdash;could knock out this protective field. The sensors and shield projectors thus became vulnerable to attack, as demonstrated by Rebel starfighter pilots.



There were many such geodesic domes scattered around the ship, probably to ensure that there were no blind spots for her sensors and to provide a good distribution of shield projector coverage. Concentrated fire on a single area would thus not deprive the ship of all her shield-generating ability.

Bridge tower
The bridge tower was almost a starship in itself and a standard module on many warship classes built by KDY. It was equipped with heavy shielding to compensate for its location, and had mess halls, special quarters for officers of high rank, and large escape pods. The admiral aboard the vessel even had his own escape pod, directly above the command bridge and next to admiral's suites. The command tower also had its own power generators, relays, and life-support systems. It was connected to the ship's main reactor by a cluster of power feeds. Its highly visible position was compensated with very heavy shielding that could only be penetrated with concentrated heavy fire.

Main bridge
The bridge of the Executor had the same basic layout as standard Star Destroyers. The outer-most part featured nine triangular viewports. The center contained two crewpits which housed the control consoles for the ship. Between them was the command walkway. To the right and left sides of the bridge were two alcoves containing the weapons and defense stations.

Behind the bridge were the communications stations, a turbolift, and a HoloNet pod for ship-to-ship communications. On the level directly beneath the bridge was the main navigation complex.

The design and construction of the Executor-class


The Executor-class was the brainchild of Lira Wessex, the brilliant and ambitious engineer who already had the designs of the Venator-class and Imperator-class (later renamed Imperial-class) Star Destroyers to her credit. Following her work on the already-impressive Imperial-class, Wessex sought to improve on the design.

Adhering to Kuat Drive Yards' philosophy of psychological effect in starship design, or "terror styling", she believed that the immense size of an Imperial-class Star Destroyer was largely responsible for its ability to intimidate opponents. Working on that theory, she began designing a starship that would dwarf all her previous works. Though KDY had designed and built extremely large warships in the past, such as Star Dreadnoughts like the Mandator-class and Star Battlecruisers like the Procurator-class, the result obtained by Wessex was utterly gargantuan.

Wessex submitted the Executor-class design for approval in a period when Imperial tactical philosophy was rapidly becoming organized around the concept of superweapons&mdash;the Death Star was nearing completion at the time, and its very existence surely must have influenced those making the decision to go, or not go, with Wessex's project. For instance, the Imperial Navy felt its position of dominance threatened by the battle station, and its approval of the design may have been meant to keep the fleet in play as Palpatine's first terror weapon of choice. Should the Death Star perform as expected, the navy may have wanted to be able to keep up with it, with a superweapon of their own. Should the station fail to perform as expected (as it eventually did), the navy would have an alternative ready for the Emperor to turn to.



Emperor Palpatine authorized the construction of the first four Executor-class ships even before the Battle of Yavin (0 BBY), but it still had to be slipped past the watchful eyes of various oversight committees in the Imperial Senate; to the very last, the minority of Senators who opposed Palpatine and his policies used the few political tools they had left to hinder him, and one of these was budget oversight. To conceal the particulars of the vessel from the opposition, the Navy listed the new ship as a "Super-class Star Destroyer" in budget reports submitted to the Senate, and understated its true length (19,000 meters) by many kilometers. This is why the Executor-class and other ships of its size range became known by the nickname "Super Star Destroyers", and also why the ship's length, even in Imperial government scandocs, was variously reported, depending on the source, as 8,000 meters or 12,800 meters, before the true details of this behemoth came to light.

The sudden and unanticipated destruction of the Death Star at Yavin changed Wessex's production schedule completely. At the urging of Darth Vader, the Emperor ordered her to rush the new ships into production as quickly as possible, to compensate for the loss of the battle station. As certain segments of naval command may have anticipated, a new symbol of intimidation was needed, and as Wessex had believed, the Executor-class fit the need well.

Imperial service
Initially deemed militarily inefficient, the ships served to further the Imperial policy of fear set forth in the Tarkin Doctrine. While the ships of the Executor-class proved effective in driving fear into the hearts of the Rebel Alliance, they were disliked by much of the Admiralty, who preferred to field large numbers of smaller vessels over one larger one.

Though the ship was initially manufactured by KDY, the first vessel of its class, Executor, was built in secret at Fondor rather than the company's home shipyards at Kuat. Executor went on to become the most feared and famous of its class by virtue of its status as Darth Vader's command ship.

In the later years, production on Executor-class Star Dreadnoughts and other Super Star Destroyers accelerated in a display of the Emperor's wealth and power. After the death of the Emperor and the fragmentation of the Galactic Empire into feuding fiefs, Executor-class Star Dreadnoughts were popular acquisitions amongst warlords hoping to improve their military power and prestige. Some would fall into the hands of the New Republic, where they would fight against the Empire they had once served.

Legacy


Following the Black Fleet Crisis, where the New Republic faced the Star Dreadnought Intimidator, a decision was made to build a warship class that could counter threats from rogue warships like the Executor-class. The result was the Star Dreadnought-analogue Viscount-class Star Defender built by the Mon Calamari. In addition to these Star Defenders, the few Executor-class Star Dreadnoughts left after the Galactic Civil War would see heavy action in the Yuuzhan Vong War, where even more ships were lost.

After the war, the only known Star Dreadnought left and operating under the Galactic Alliance was Guardian, which was present at the Second Battle of Coruscant.

Behind the scenes

 * Other names used to describe these vessels were "Battlecruiser", "Star Destroyer", and "Star Cruiser".


 * "Executor" comes from the Latin word meaning "an administrator or executive officer".


 * In the ESB arcade game for Atari, an Imperial ship can be seen searching for the Rebel's secret base after the Battle of Massassi Temple. This crude vector-drawing was quite similar to an early Executor production painting, and could represent a distinct warship class.


 * The filming model of Executor included some unusual items attached or built-in to create the illusion of detail. One notable item visible on close examination is model of a toy soldier.




 * Although G-canon movie visuals established a length of around 11 miles, many official sources have incorrectly stated a length of 8,000 meters. Since then, there has been a general movement towards the true canon length. The Executor's length was later revised to 12,800 meters, the average between the incorrect five-mile length, and the correct canon length. The official databank currently states that the "latest measurements" give this ship class a length of 19,000 meters, which fits within the possible range established by the films. However, it also lists an alternate armament, which is quite small for such a large ship.


 * On March 9th 2006, in addition to clarifying the length of the Executor, the Wizards of the Coast website added information in their Q&A section about the size of other Executor SSDs:
 * Q: In Starships of the Galaxy, the Executor (Vader's Super Star Destroyer) is listed with a length of 8,000 meters, but in the text it's described as being eight times the length of an Imperial-class Star Destroyer, which would be 12,800 meters. Which is correct?


 * A: Actually, they're both wrong because the official size of Super Star Destroyers has been revised. Thus, here's some official errata: The Executor is 19,000 meters long, as are all Super Star Destroyers of the same class.




 * Any ships not associated with the Executor stock or referenced as being part of the Executor-class, could thus arguably be part of the Super-class of 8 km long SSDs.


 * The Starship Battles expansion of the Star Wars Miniatures game provided an in-universe explanation for the differing lengths and names of this class by stating they were used by the Imperial Navy to cover up the true nature of the Executor project.


 * When the domes on Executor's bridge tower exploded during the Battle of Endor, a crewman said that the bridge shields were down. Most people believe that the domes are shield generators, but this is only partially correct. The Inside the Worlds of the Star Wars Trilogy states that these domes are, in fact, sensor domes with local-area shield emitter vanes. Nonetheless, novels like the X-wing books have used destroying the domes to disable shields as a plot point.


 * The official crew compliment of 279,144 was originally intended for the 8,000 meter length and has never been updated. If the crew density were to remain the same, the crew compliment of the 19,000-meter Executor would likely be on the order of 3.3 million.


 * In one of the new shots inserted into The Empire Strikes Back 1997 Special Edition, Executor was shown as being light grey, as opposed to all other shots of it in the film being blueish-gray. This could be accounted for by different background lighting, as the Executor is seen as both light grey and white in publicity shots.



Appearances

 * Imperial Spy
 * Sand Blasted
 * Star Wars Rebellion: My Brother, My Enemy
 * Splinter of the Mind's Eye comic
 * Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
 * Marvel Star Wars 42: The Empire Strikes Back: To Be a Jedi
 * Star Wars: Empire at War: Forces of Corruption
 * Star Wars: Rebel Assault II: The Hidden Empire
 * Star Wars: Rebellion
 * Star Wars: X-wing Alliance
 * Shadows of the Empire comic
 * Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
 * A Day in the Life
 * Mara Jade: A Night on the Town
 * Darksaber
 * X-wing: The Krytos Trap
 * X-wing: The Bacta War
 * X-wing: Iron Fist
 * X-wing: Solo Command
 * X-wing: Isard's Revenge
 * Crimson Empire
 * Enemy Lines I: Rebel Dream
 * Enemy Lines II: Rebel Stand
 * Two for One
 * Destiny's Way
 * The Unifying Force

Notes and references
Executor-Klasse