Death Star II/Legends

''This article is about the second Death Star. You may be looking for the first Death Star.''

Specifications
The Death Star II had a monstrous diameter of over 900 kilometers&mdash;the intellectual and physical evolution of the Death Star I. It was designed to take into account and eradicate the shortcomings of the original. Tantamount in this redesign was the elimination of the two meter wide exhaust port that was the downfall of the Death Star I. Instead, excess heat and gases were exhausted to space through millions of millimeter wide tubes, with highly advanced countermeasures that would seal themselves off if the walls sensed any excess of heat or energy. The second main advancement in the Death Star II over the Death Star I was the improvement of the superlaser. The superlaser in the Death Star II was much more powerful, took less time to recharge, and had lowered power settings and more sensitive targeting systems to better combat capital ships. The conventional armament of Death Star II was also much greater than that of Death Star I.

History
The Death Star II was built as part of Emperor Palpatine's master plan to destroy the Alliance to Restore the Republic and turn Luke Skywalker to the Dark Side. Death Star II was built near the forest moon of Endor, in geosynchronous orbit with a shield generator on the moon below. Resources were secretly ferried to the distant world from all over the galaxy by Prince Xizor's Xizor Transport Systems. The Emperor assigned the administration of the construction of the Death Star II to the ineffectual and sloppy Moff Jerjerrod. Under the lazy hand of Moff Jerjerrod, the plans to the Death Star II were leaked to Bothan spies. The Emperor even leaked his personal schedule so the Rebel Alliance would know when he would personally be aboard. This bait proved too tempting and resulted in the Battle of Endor.

At the Battle of Endor, the Death Star II was unfinished structurally, but, contrary to Rebel intelligence, the superlaser was fully operational. It was destroyed during the Battle of Endor when Lando Calrissian, piloting the Millennium Falcon; and Wedge Antilles, piloting an X-wing starfighter flew into its unfinished superstructure and destroyed the hypermatter reactor core with well placed concussion missiles and proton torpedoes.

Behind the scenes
There are discrepancies regarding the size of the Death Star II, which has generated some controversy. The West End Games RPG claimed that the second Death Star had a diameter of 160 kilometers. The majority of Expanded Universe material since then has simply repeated this number. The recent Inside the Worlds of Star Wars Trilogy fact book, detailed scaling of the station in the film, and statements by ILM visual effects designer Richard Edlund show that the second Death Star was actually over 900 kilometers in diameter.

According to the West End Games RPG stats, when completed, its massive hanger bays would house four capital ships, 7,200 TIE fighters, 3,600 Lambda-class shuttles, 2,500 Skipray Blastboats, 1,900 Y-85 Titan dropships, and 13,000 Sentinel-class Landing Craft, including 1,400 AT-ATs, 1,400 AT-STs, 178 PX-4 Mobile Command Bases, 1,420 repulsortanks, 1,420 repulsorcraft, 355 HAVr A9 Floating Fortresses, and 4,843 Juggernauts. As these figures are for the incorrect undersized version, they would be closer to what would be carried by the first Death Star; the proper figures for the second Death Star should be several orders of magnitude higher.

Appearances

 * Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
 * Star Wars:Rogue Squadron