Death Star

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The Death Star was an enormous military battle station in the fictional Star Wars universe. Two models of them were built over the course of the series. These two battle stations were enormous, measuring hundreds of kilometers in diameter and equipped with state-of-the-art weaponry. A real model, about 2 1/2 feet (76 cm) in diameter, currently resides in Seattle's Science Fiction Museum.

Contents 1 Description 2 Expanded Universe 3 Contradictions in official literature 4 Death Star firepower 5 Cultural impact 6 References 7 External links

[edit] Description

The Galactic Empire's ultimate weapon, the Death Star, was a mobile battle station that mounted a directed superlaser weapon capable of completely destroying a planet with a single shot (However, according to Darth Vader, even this power is "insignificant next to the power of The Force")^[1]. Planetary shields that could have held off entire fleets were ineffective against such a weapon. The first Death Star held 27,048 officers, 774,576 crew including troopers, pilots and officials, 400,000 support workers and over 25,000 Imperial stormtroopers. These represent minimum crew figures, and the station could probably hold several times this number. It also carried assault shuttles, Skipray Blastboats, strike cruisers, drop ships, land vehicles, and support ships as well as 7,200 TIE fighters. For surface protection it sported 10,000 turbolaser batteries, 2,500 ion cannons and at least 700 tractor beam projectors, and the superlaser. Even without the primary weapon, the Death Star carried enough troops and ships to occupy an entire star system.^[2]

The Death Star (I and II) were featured in the original movie trilogy: the first in A New Hope, and the second in Return of the Jedi. The designs for the Death Star are visible in Attack of the Clones; and in Revenge of the Sith. Palpatine is seen viewing the plans before the war ends. He and Vader are seen viewing the outer structure of the First Death Star near the end of the film.

The first Death Star was designed by the Geonosians under Poggle the Lesser. At the start of the Clone Wars, they gave the designs of their "Great Weapon" (also referred to as the "Ultimate Weapon") to Count Dooku to prevent the designs from falling into Jedi hands. Dooku took the designs back to Coruscant and gave them to his master, Darth Sidious. Once the war was well underway, the Separatist leaders began to finance and build the weapon, using mostly Geonosians as their laborers. Due to the changing political climate, the Separatist leaders were all murdered, the Separatist movement was ended and the weapon fell directly into the newly-formed Empire.

Raith Sienar also had plans for a Death Star-like battle station. He later passed the project to Grand Moff Tarkin so that he could take credit for the design, since he no longer had interest in the project. It is believed that enslaved Geonosians continued to work on the Death Star well into its construction, the initial stages of which were shown in the ending of Revenge of the Sith. According to the New Essential Chronology as well as statements made by George Lucas himself, this is the same Death Star seen in A New Hope.^{[citation needed]} Despite this, some fans (including Dr. Curtis Saxton on his Star Wars Technical Commentaries website) have claimed that this Death Star must be a prototype to the one seen in the original film. The construction was delayed while a test system was created at Maw Installation, and after a long delay for systems testing, construction was resumed on the battlestation.

In A New Hope, Han Solo and Luke Skywalker mistake the station for a small moon while following a lone patrolling TIE fighter. After escaping from the Death Star, the plans to the station, stolen by Rebel spies (according to the LucasArts video games, a secret signal interceptions asteroid, as well as Kyle Katarn), are transported by Princess Leia (with help from Han Solo, Luke Skywalker and the droids R2-D2 and C-3PO) to Rebel leaders. Luke Skywalker pilots an X-wing starfighter through a trench indentation on the surface of the Death Star, evading Darth Vader long enough to launch a pair of proton torpedoes down a thermal exhaust port that leads directly to the reactor core, causing a chain reaction which destroys the battle station.

As mentioned in Return of the Jedi, Bothan spies steal the plans to the second Death Star (this information is also found in the book Shadows of the Empire), unaware that their theft was orchestrated by Palpatine (some missions in "Enemies of The Empire", the last expansion campaign in the game Star Wars: TIE Fighter, allow the player to personally take part in this orchestration, including killing some—but not all—Bothan spies to preserve the intention that the Empire was trying to prevent acquisition of the plans). General Crix Madine and Admiral Ackbar devise a plan for its destruction. Han leads a team to the forest moon of Endor to destroy its shield generator, while a group of fighters and the Millennium Falcon piloted by Lando Calrissian fly into the center of the station through a narrow superstructure and destroy the reactor directly, rushing out in just enough time to escape the ensuing explosion.

One drawback of the original design was the power systems. The first Death Star's reactor required one full day to generate enough energy to fire. However, 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 and smaller vessels. It is not clear whether the shorter recharge time applied only to the reduced-power shots used to destroy starships, or also full-power planet-shattering shots.

The second Death Star corrected several flaws of the original design. The two-meter exhaust vent that doomed the first station was replaced with millions of millimeter heat-dissipating ducts, 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, while the rest were spread across the surface city blocks and sector command centers.

[edit] Expanded Universe

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. This old design can still be seen in the grid plan animations seen in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, as the animation was created before the designer decided to change it. The space station seen in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones is commonly thought to be a blooper, since the original plan in it appears to show 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 by the Rebel Alliance, prior to the Battle of Yavin.

According to the video game Star Wars Battlefront 2, the Death Star's superlaser originated on Mygeeto. The 501st Legion of Clone troopers, led by Jedi Master Ki-Adi Mundi, helped Chancellor Palpatine retrieve energy crystals from an energy collector of the droid factory; the crystals are the power source of the laser. Ki-Adi Mundi thought they were there to destroy the droid factory. The Clone Troopers secretly retrieved the crystals before it was destroyed.

At the time of the first Death Star's construction, Sienar was designing a battlestation (without a superlaser) of similar size and prestige as the Geonosian/Imperial superweapon. The best elements of both were apparently merged together with final detail work taking place in the secret Maw Cluster on Kessel. This laboratory completed a scaled-down prototype that was later destroyed by the New Republic.

One of the primary designers of the Death Star was an engineer and scientist named Bevel Lemelisk. Lemelisk worked with the Geonosians to convert Sienar's Expeditionary Battle Planetoid into a superlaser-armed battlestation, and later designed more Imperial superweapons in the Maw Installation before overseeing the Death Star's construction at the planet Despayre.

In the novelette "Therefore I Am" (from Tales of the Bounty Hunters), bounty hunter droid IG-88 infiltrates the second Death Star while under construction; its tendencies compel it to take control of the battlestation by transferring its AI to the systems of the Death Star supercomputer core system, whereupon it would traverse the galaxy, destroying planets one by one. IG-88's timing was poor, however; it completed the transfer during the Battle of Endor; after a power shortage switched off the core memory and the electrical systems of the stations due to reactor failure.

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. Smuggler Booster Terrik later bought the Darksaber's technical schematics and installed a scaled-down version in his Imperial-class Star Destroyer Errant Venture. This weapon was less powerful, but had far better workmanship and was used to great effect to cover the Jedi evacuation from Yavin IV during the Yuuzhan Vong invasion.

[edit] Contradictions in official literature

There is some disagreement about the size of both Death Stars. According to most Expanded Universe sources and the Star Wars Databank,^[3] the first Death Star was 120 kilometers in diameter. This however, conflicts with the Star Wars Incredible Cross Sections fact book, which states that the first Death Star was 160 kilometers in diameter. There is a similar controversy regarding the size of the second Death Star seen in Return of the Jedi as result of various contradictions. Both the Star Wars Databank^[4] and the majority of Expanded Universe material concurs with the Death Star II being 160 kilometers in diameter, because that is the figure stated in the Return of the Jedi Sketchbook, 1983. The novelization of Return of the Jedi describes Death Star II as "almost twice as big" as the first Death Star but fails to specify whether this applies to the volume or diameter. This is in contrast to the 900 km diameter figure stated in the Inside the Worlds of the Original Trilogy fact book. Curtis Saxton, author of the Episode II and III Incredible Cross Sections books, claims^[5] that the scaling with the Sanctuary Moon in the movie also shows that the second Death Star was 900 kilometers in diameter, though there are critics who have made their own scaling calculations and come up with a figure closer to 160 kilometers.^[6] According to Star Wars Insider #68, page 23, DK nonfiction (which includes the book claiming the 900 kilometer length) is considered canon by Lucasfilm Limited. Unfortunately, the level of canon (there are various levels of Star Wars canon, and the Expanded Universe also has a level of canon status) was not revealed, and so the confusion continues.

Lucas has made offhand comments regarding the first Death Star. He explains that the incomplete Death Star at the end of Revenge of the Sith was the exact same one as seen in A New Hope. He goes on to say that it would be "a bit of a stretch", but explains that due to "union disputes and supply problems", it took 19 years to build (a curious nod to a conversation about the contractors in Clerks). However, Kevin J. Anderson's novels Jedi Search and Champions of the Force explain that a prototype Death Star was built in preparation of construction of the first Death Star in A New Hope, which would give another explanation for why the first Death Star took so long to build, in contrast with the second Death Star from Return of the Jedi.^[7] The contradiction between the novels by Kevin J. Anderson and the movies have since been resolved (or retconned) in The New Essential Chronology, which establishes that the first Death Star was indeed the one seen at the end of Revenge of the Sith: however, major problems with the technologies used to create the superlaser led to the creation of a testbed proof-of-concept prototype to ensure that the superlaser and the other systems would work. Created by Bevel Lemelisk and Tol Sivron, this is what became the Death Star Prototype. Once this was completed and tested successfully the First Death Star was completed, thus reconciling the various elements of continuity.

[edit] Death Star firepower

The Death Star's turbolaser is powered by a hypermatter energy reactor. The hypermatter reactor powers the primary power amplifier. The power amplifier starts up the firing field amplifier, which creates an ultimate power that travels through the tributary superlaser beam shaft. Eventually, the ultimate power hits the carrier crystal beam and then a ring-like laser screen, creating a superlaser with the power to destroy a planet (more firepower than half the star fleet^[8]). It has been calculated^[9][10] that overcoming the gravity holding together an Earth-sized planet takes on the order of 10³² joules of energy, or roughly the total output of the sun in a week. More detailed estimates place the violent destruction of Alderaan as requiring 1.0 × 10^38[11] joules of energy, or on the order of millions of times more than necessary to permanently break the planet apart. This is the equivalent of from 1.1 × 10¹⁸ to 1.3 × 10¹⁹ tonnes of resting matter converted directly into energy (by Albert Einstein's formula, E = mc²). This is not to be confused with energy-TNT equivalence. This massive quantity of fuel leads to obvious problems if storage is considered. If the energy is produced by matter-antimatter annihilation with the reagents being stored in a sphere with a density of one tonne per cubic meter, this would give a ball of matter and antimatter fuel between 1,300 and 2,900 km in diameter. Even the 10³² joules estimated as the minimum to destroy a planet would require a 13 km globe of such fuel. The massive power-generation abilities of the Death Star are explicitly referred to in the Inside the Worlds of the Original Trilogy factbook thusly: "In order to deliver a spectacular, planet-destroying burst, the station's hypermatter reactor would have to have been able to generate power equivalent to hundreds of super-giant stars".

The law of conservation of momentum also causes interesting problems for this weapon system; these and other problems led to dissent^[12] among some within the Star Trek vs Star Wars debate community, who dispute that the Death Star's reactor could (or did) supply this quantity of energy.

Calculations have also been made for the destruction of the moon of the planet Kessel by the prototype Death Star in Champions of the Force; assuming it to be similar in size and composition to Earth's moon, this would require 10²⁹ joules. A similar figure is proposed by the Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels, which claims that the prototype's firepower could destroy the core of a planet.^[13]

While some claim the Death Star is an "inefficient" way to destroy a planet, the films show that it was intended to be a weapon of ultimate power, where the threat of its use would deter star systems who might otherwise defy or displease the Empire. This policy was known as the Tarkin Doctrine. While the relatively simpler task of modifying a large asteroid's orbit would be an effective way to wipe out life on a planet, it would not have the same psychological impact as a weapon of the Death Star's magnitude being deployed. Planetary shields, seen in the Expanded Universe and surrounding the Forest Moon of Endor in Return of the Jedi, may also be the reason for deploying the Death Star rather than kinetic weapons. Such shields, designed to withstand planetary bombardments, could possibly also deflect asteroid impacts. Some claim that slow-motion viewing of the destruction of Alderaan, the first planet destroyed by the Death Star, implies the planet was protected by such a shield, as the blast seems to curve around the planet and envelope it before the explosion.

[edit] Cultural impact

The Death Star is one of the best-known concepts from the Star Wars universe and is widely recognizable outside of that context. As such, it is frequently referenced in other mass media, even where the context is radically different.^[14] A famous example of this phenomenon occurs in the film Clerks, in which two store clerks argue over whether innocent independent civilian contractors were killed when the Rebel Alliance destroyed the second Death Star (still under construction) during Return of the Jedi. George Lucas commented on this in the Attack of the Clones audio commentary, saying that the termite-like Geonosians would have been hired by the Empire, so there was no problem in killing them.

When the Saturnian moon Mimas was photographed in 1980, it was discovered that it had a giant crater which made the moon coincidentally have a strong resemblance to the Death Star, which was quickly noted in popular culture. Astronomers used the phrase "Death Star" to describe Nemesis, a hypothetical star body first postulated in 1984 that was supposedly responsible for gravitationally forcing comets and asteroids from the Oort cloud towards Earth.

Internally, the logo of AT&T, due to its visual similarity, is known as the Death Star. When political cartoon and comic strip creators learned of this, many references to AT&T used the Death Star analogy. It was widely seen in Doonesbury and Bloom County comic strips. This name was also given to the titanic former Bell Labs facility in Holmdel, New Jersey, now owned by Lucent. The logo of the Illinois Central Railroad was also nicknamed "the Death Star" after Star Wars' release in 1977, even though the logo had been in use since 1972.

When a particular line of IBM DeskStar hard disk drives were found to have a high defect rate around 2003, they quickly became known as the DeathStars.^[15]

An episode of Muppet Babies involved the muppets making a movie that parodies Star Wars. In it, the Death Star was known as the Death Tomato, and it targeted the muppets (who were parodies of the original characters, such as Baby Kermit becoming a parody of Skywalker) when Fozzie told one of his bad jokes.

Two examples of the Death Star can be found in the sci-fi comedy series Futurama. In the episode A Clone of My Own, all humans still alive at the age of 160 are collected by the sunset robat squad and taken to the gigantic "near death star" to live out the rest of their days in isolation from society. It can be noted that the actual Death Star is recorded as being 160 kilometers across. In the episode The Why of Fry, the InfoSphere built by the Brainspawn to destroy the universe bears a resemblance to the death star.

In the Lost episode "Dave", Hurley is shown a photo by a doctor proving that his "friend" Dave, actually a hallucination, does not exist. When Hurley tells this to Dave, he argues that the photo was fabricated, mentioning photoshop and Kinko's, and asking Hurley "did you think they really blew up the Death Star?"

In Sonic the Hedgehog 2, 3, and Sonic and Knuckles; Dr. Eggman uses a weapon known as the Death Egg. It looks almost identical to the Death Star except that it has Dr. Eggman's face on the front. In Sonic Adventure 2, the game's climax takes place on a abandoned space station built into an asteroid, called "Space Colony ARK". ARK also features a powerful laser, which destroyed part of the moon at less than full power. Part of Shadow The Hedgehog also takes place on ARK, and if the player follows the "Dark" route, the laser is again used but this time to destroy a city on Earth.

In a skit on Robot Chicken, Emperor Palpatine receives a phone call from Darth Vader to inform him of the Death Star's destruction, 2 weeks after the event.

In a cutaway on Family Guy, Darth Vader is depicted as a parking attendant, before trying to get a bank loan to "build a giant space station that can blow up a planet".

In Canada, the term "Death Stars" was used to describe U.S. Direct Broadcast Satellites^[16][17] capable of broadcasting signals into Canada that were not regulated by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission and unscrambled with equipment not specifically authorized for use in Canada, contrary to Canadian law.^[18] These Direct Broadcast Satellites were seen as a potential threat to undermine Canadian television providers.^[19]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Death Star on Wookieepedia: The Star Wars Wiki

Superweapons of the Star Wars Universe
Space Stations
Star Forge | Centerpoint Station | Death Star
Extraorbital Weapons
Galaxy Gun | Eye of Palpatine | Sun Crusher
Suborbital Weapons
Mass shadow generator | Dark Reaper | World Devastator
See also
List of Star Wars ship-mounted weapons | List of Star Wars ranged weapons | List of Star Wars heavy weapons | List of Star Wars melee weapons | List of Star Wars heavy weapons