Death Star/Legends

This page refers to the concept of a Death Star. See also, Superweapons, the Great Weapon, the Death Star Prototype, Death Star I, and Death Star II


 * "That's no moon. It's a space station."
 * &mdash;Obi-Wan Kenobi

A Death Star was a moon-sized military space station. The Death Stars were the first in a long series of superweapons developed by the Tarkin Doctrine. Following their destruction, other weapons followed, including the Tarkin, the Galaxy Gun, the Sun Crusher and the World Devastators.

Description
The Galactic Empire's ultimate terror weapons, the Death Stars, were battle stations several hundred kilometers in diameter and mounting a directed energy "superlaser" capable of completely destroying an Earth-sized planet with a single shot. Planetary shields that could have held off entire fleets were ineffective against such a weapon. The Death Star I held at least a crew of 265,675, 52,276 gunners,167,216 pilots, 25,984 Stormtroopers, 607,360 troops, 42,782 ship support staff and 7,200 TIE fighters, 4 Strike-class cruisers, 3,600 ATR-6 Gamma-class Assault Transports, 1,400 AT-ATs, 1,400 AT-STs, 1,860 Y-85 Titan Dropships and more. Scattered across the Death Star's surface were thousands of weapons emplacements: a total of 10,000 turbolaser batteries, 2,500 laser cannons, 2,500 ion cannons and 768 tractor beam projectors. A Death Star was to be commanded by nobody less than a Moff.

The first Death Star was 160 kilometers in diameter. The second Death Star was 900 kilometers in diameter. Much of its interior space was devoted to systems required to maintain its massive superlaser and power plant. At the heart of each Death Star was a gigantic hypermatter reactor. Within this chamber burned a fusion reaction of prodigious proportions, fed by stellar fuel bottles lining its periphery.

Splitting the station into two equal hemispheres was a huge equatorial trench ~503 kilometers in length for the first Death Star and 2827 kilometers for the second Death Star. This area of the station housed most of the major landing bays, drive thrusters, sensor arrays and tractor beam systems. Halfway between the equator and each pole were two supplementary trenches. The Death Star was divided into 24 zones, 12 per hemisphere, each controlled by a "bridge." To further organize the immense amount of activity aboard, there were specific "sectors" denoting function. These included the General, Command, Military, Security, Service and Technical sectors.

Since service onboard the Death Star was a long-term affair, the station maintained a number of civilian amenities to make the time aboard a deep space station more comfortable. Parks, shopping centers and recreation areas could be found in the general sectors of the station.

Facilitating the Death Star's realspace propulsion were a network of powerful ion engines that transformed reactor power into needed thrust. In order for the Death Star to be a deadly threat, it needed to be mobile. Using linked banks of 123 hyperdrive field generators tied into a single navigational matrix, the Death Star could travel across the galaxy at superluminal velocities. The incredible energies harnessed by the station combined with its great mass gave the Death Star magnetic and artificial gravitational fields equal to those found on orbital bodies many times greater in size.

The Death Star's superlaser derived power directly from the hypermatter reactor. Its faceted amplification crystal combined the destructive power of eight separate tributary beams into one single blast with the intensity of a stellar core. Though the energy output of this blast could be scaled to fire at smaller targets such as capital ships, the two instances in which the superlaser was fired were at full power at planetary bodies.

The Death Star's interior follows two orientations. Those areas closest to the surface are built with concentric decks with gravity oriented towards the Death Star's core. Past this shell of surface "sprawls," the Death Star's interior had stacked decks with gravity pointing toward the station's southern pole.

History


The initial technical design of the Death Star was done by the Geonosians, based on the contract given by the Separatists. Poggle the Lesser, leader of the Geonosian, returned the top-secret design to Count Dooku to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Jedi just in time of the Battle of Geonosis. Dooku took the designs back to Coruscant and gave them to Darth Sidious, his dark master.

Darth Sidious kept the design, and later ordered the Death Star's construction after the Galactic Empire was formed, in order to secure his new-formed absolute power. Wilhuff Tarkin was appointed to mastermind the secret development project. Tarkin's creative work and thought had resulted in the realization of Death Star as an Empire's ultimate weapon.

Just after construction was completed, the Death Star plans were stolen by Rebel spies on a secret signal interceptions asteroid; the Rebellion moved on and in the borders of Operation Skyhook, a copy of the plans was stolen by Kyle Katarn from Danuta and finally reached Leia. Later, while attempting to transport the plans to Bail Organa on Alderaan, Tantive IV was under attack by the Devastator above Tatooine. Leia before being captured, transmitted the plans in R2-D2 and sent them to Obi-Wan on Tatooine. On his way to Alderaan (which was in the meantime destroyed by the Death Star) Han Solo and Luke Skywalker who were escorting Obi-Wan, mistook the station for a small moon while following a lone TIE fighter. They were soon captured, but after escaping from the Death Star with Leia, the plans to the station were transported by Princess Leia (with help from Han Solo, Luke Skywalker and two droids) to Rebel leaders on Yavin 4. Soon after, the Death Star arrived to destroy the rebel base. Luke Skywalker piloted an X-wing starfighter through a minor trench on the surface of the Death Star, evading pursuit by Darth Vader long enough to launch a proton torpedo down a exhaust shaft that reached down into the "reactor core", causing a chain reaction that destroyed the battle station just before it could fire on the Rebel base.

Nearly four years later, Bothan spies stole the plans of the second Death Star, unaware that their theft was orchestrated by Emperor Palpatine. General Crix Madine and Admiral Ackbar devised a plan for the destruction of the new Death Star. Han Solo led a team to the Forest moon of Endor to destroy the shield generator there, while group of fighters and the Millennium Falcon piloted by Lando Calrissian flew into the center of the station through a narrow maze of pipes to destroy the reactor directly, rushing out in just enough time to escape the ensuing explosion before the station could give its next order: fire on the Sanctuary Moon itself.

Additional information
Around the same time the Geonosians were designing their Great Weapon, Raith Sienar was designing a battlestation (apparently without a superlaser) of similar size and prestige. The best elements of both were apparently merged together with final detail work taking place in the secret Maw Cluster near Kessel. This laboratory completed a scaled-down prototype that was later destroyed by the New Republic.

Design flaws
One drawback of the original design was the power systems. The first Death Star's reactor required one full day to generate enough energy for a full power shot. However, even low power shots were capable of massive destruction on a planetary scale. The second Death Star had redesigned systems and was capable of firing once every few minutes. It also had improved targeting computers, allowing it to fire the weapon at capital ships.

The second Death Star also corrected several other flaws in the original design. The two-meter exhaust vent that doomed the first station was replaced with millions of millimeter wide tubes, each designed to seal if excess energy was detected. The second station also boasted far more turbolaser batteries with redesigned targeting systems, allowing them to target starfighters more easily. The greatest concentration of turbolasers was located near the Emperor's throne tower.

Another limitation of the first Death Star was that it could not destroy gas giants like Yavin. At the Battle of Yavin, the approach path of the first Death Star meant that Yavin was between Yavin IV and the Death Star. The Death Star had to enter orbit around the Yavin and wait until the moon cleared the limb of the planet. This delay, among other problems, gave the Rebels a better chance of destroying the Death Star I which they succeeded. The larger Second Death Star could just destroy Yavin which would, in turn, lead to devastation of its moons.

Another flaw was the small gaps in the shields of the first Death Star. The Empire believed that since only small ships could wiggle through the gaps, these were harmless. The second Death Star would have had no such gaps.

Darksaber
Durga the Hutt also built a small version with only the central laser core and a small living quarters, which was destroyed in the asteroid field around Hoth. This was known as the Darksaber, but shoddy construction techniques meant that this attempt was an abject failure even before its destruction.

Behind the scenes
According to the Star Wars Incredible Cross Sections fact book, the first Death Star in A New Hope was 160 kilometers in diameter. According to the Inside the Worlds of Star Wars Trilogy fact book and detailed scaling of the station in Return of the Jedi, the second Death Star was 900 kilometers in diameter. Some Expanded Universe sources and starwars.com state much smaller figures&mdash;120 kilometers for the first Death Star and 160 kilometers for the second&mdash;however, most of the evidence argues for the larger sizes.

In the early production of the original movie, the hollow dish was designed to be on the equator, but then it was decided to be on the 'northern' hemisphere. However this old design can still be seen in the grid plan animations seen in the movie. This is because the animation was created before the prop designers decided to change it. This is a blooper, since the original plan in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones shows the 'later' form.

Many of the Star Wars games are concerned with the Death Star's destruction, or the theft, protection, and transmission of its plans until reaching Tantive IV.

Both the Droid Control Ship and the Star Forge, also destroyed, had a small sphere in their middle as a tribute to the Death Star.

Physics
It has been calculated that blowing up an Earth-sized planet takes on the order of $$10^{32}$$joules of energy; this is roughly the total output of the Earth's sun in a week. More detailed estimates place the violent destruction of Alderaan as requiring $$10^{38}$$joules of energy, or roughly one million times that necessary to permanently break apart the planet. The energy total is probably slightly higher than this, as Alderaan's planetary shield withstood the blast for roughly 0.2 seconds. The prototype Death Star destroyed the moon of the planet Kessel. While there was little detailed information about this event, it would have required around $$10^{29}$$joules, assuming similar size and composition to Earth's moon.