Despayre

Despayre, originally named Horuz, was a penal world in the Horuz system and the place where the first Death Star, after being relocated many times to avoid Rebel saboteurs, was completed. It was a center of suffering and death long before its demise at the hands of the Death Star&mdash;the first planet to be victim to the superweapon's terrible legacy.

History


The shipyard that created the Galactic Empire's ultimate weapon became the center of the Imperial war machine. Components from almost all major corporations of the galaxy were sent to this system, and labor was found on the penal colony below. Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin visited the system on many occasions to oversee the construction, bringing with him Wookiee slaves from the Kashyyyk system.

Despayre's death knell was sounded with the arrival of Darth Vader. Dispatched by the Emperor to accelerate the construction process, Vader personally oversaw a wave of executions to push forward the process.

From the moment the decision was made to begin construction in the planet's upper orbit, there would have been no scenario in which the Imperial convict labor force would have been spared a terrible end. When the Death Star was completed, the construction process left behind a shroud of industrial debris in orbit, making passage to and from the surface virtually impossible. This was anticipated and provided for; Despayre was intended to be declared off-limits, and the prisoners would have been expected to fend for themselves, either until their supplies ran out or until the jungle came in. But the convicts never did endure this slow form of death; after repeated and costly mistakes, Tarkin concluded that they made for a terrible work force. They were not trained, they were physically challenged, and they were mentally unstable. Rather than hope for an improvement, Tarkin decided to cut his losses and ordered the immediate execution of the entire work crew. From then on, Wookiee conscripts were used in the construction.

Despayre itself would also be, in a sense, "executed." Tarkin decided to celebrate the completion of his battle station by testing its superlaser weapon on Despayre, destroying the planet.

The Rebellion, having just learned of the Death Star's location from the captured frigate Priam, dispatched corvette group Ethar to investigate. They arrived to find only the remnants of the planet and a trap set by Imperial forces. Both corvettes were captured by the Empire.

Behind the scenes



 * The Rebellion Era Sourcebook erroneously refers to Despayre as the planet "Horuz", a simple conflation of the system's name.
 * According to Leland Chee, early drafts of Revenge of the Sith had the Death Star being built over a planet; had this appeared in the final draft, the world would have been identified as Despayre.
 * The planet remains erroneously intact in the PC game Star Wars: Rebellion, which begins the day after the Battle of Yavin.

Appearances

 * The Last of the Jedi: Secret Weapon
 * Interlude at Darkknell
 * Death Star
 * Star Wars: Lethal Alliance
 * Star Wars: X-wing
 * Star Wars: Rebellion
 * The Last Command
 * Darksaber

Notes and references
Despayre