Death Star
|
"That's no moon... it's a space station" |
The
Death Star was a giant
military battle station in the
fictional
Star Wars universe.
The
Galactic Empire's ultimate weapon, the Death Stars were mobile battle stations that mounted a directed
superlaser weapon capable of completely destroying a
planet with a single shot (though the second Death Star was destroyed before demonstrating its full capabilities). 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 by force.
Two Death Stars (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, and the basic structure of the first Death Star is seen 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 hands of the newly-formed
Empire.
Raith Sienar also had plans for a Death Star-like battle station. However, he later let
Grand Moff Tarkin 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. 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 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-like indentation on the surface of the Death Star, evading a pursuing
Darth Vader long enough to launch a pair of proton torpedoes down a thermal exhaust port that leads directly the reactor core, causing a chain reaction which destroys the battle station.
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The second Death Star, not yet completed |
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 "The Emperor's Will", the last expansion campaign in the game
Star Wars: TIE Fighter, allow the player to personally take part in this orchestration, including killing someâ€"but not allâ€"Bothan spies to preserve the illusion 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 centre of the ship 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. 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 was concentrated across the surface.
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 the movie, 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, secretly helped
Chancellor Palpatine retrieve energy crystals from an energy collector of the droid factory; the crystals are the power source of the laser.
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 genocidal tendencies compel it to take control of the deadly battlestation by transferring its AI to the systems of the Death Star itself, 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, and the story ends moments before the Death Star II is destroyed.
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.
There is some disagreement about the size of both Death Stars. According to most
Expanded Universe sources and the Star Wars Databank
[starwars.com The Star Wars Databank entry for the Death Star], 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
[starwars.com The Star Wars Databank entry for the second Death Star] and the majority of
Expanded Universe material concurs with the Death Star II being 160 kilometers in 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
[Star Wars Technical Commentaries on the Death Stars] 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. 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.
[ Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith DVD documentary Within a Minute, [2005]] Due to the way Star Wars handles its canon between the movies and the books, it must be assumed that Kevin J. Anderson's novels are in contradiction and thus can not be considered canon anymore. However, this has 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 planet destroying 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.
It has been calculated
[A page on "How to Destroy the Earth."][Estimate of Death Star yield on Stardestroyer.net.] that overcoming the gravity holding together an Earth-sized planet takes on the order of 10
32 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[Star Wars Technical Commentaries on the Death Stars] 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 × 10
18 to 1.3 × 10
19 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 metre, this would give a ball of matter and antimatter fuel between 1,300 and 2,900 km in diameter. Even the 10
32 joules estimated as the minimum to destroy a planet would require a 13 km globe of such fuel.
The law of conservation of momentum also causes interesting problems for this weapon system; these and other problems lead to dissent
[The Death Star Research Project on ST-v-SW.net] 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 10
29 joules.
Star Wars Technical Commentaries on the Death StarsWhile 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 wouldn't 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 planet
Hoth in
The Empire Strikes Back, 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 victim of 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.
 |
The Death Star bears a striking resemblance to Mimas, a moon of Saturn |
* 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.
* In the novel
Virtual Light by
William Gibson, the
Los Angeles Police Department uses an orbital
satellite for surveillance and communication; the police nickname it the Death Star.
* The Death Star has been
parodied in such shows as
Futurama, which features the "Near-Death Star", an installation in which all
U.S.E. (
United States of Earth) citizens older than 160 years of age are kept in coffin-like containers plugged into a computer simulation of a nursing home in Florida (in the manner of
The Matrix and similar films); also the Brainspawn's InfoSphere (a gigantic memory bank twice the size of three ordinary memory banks), used in a hellish plot to understand and destroy the universe.
* In the
Oedekerk Entertainment film
Thumb Wars: the Phantom Cuticle, the Death Star equivalent is called the Thumb Star or the Death Thumb and looks rather a lot like a thumb. In the true Evil style of Black Helmet Man, it carries weapons capable of destroying a planet (efficiently labeled the "One Huge Weapon Thing"), or spinning it fast to make the inhabitants nauseous, as well as several thousand Smaller Ineffectual Weapon Things, ten thousand Thumbtroopers, five thousand Thumbperial Battle Technicians, two thousand Fist-Fighter Pilots, and three bathrooms.
* The
Sonic the Hedgehog villain
Dr. Eggman built the "
Death Egg";
Sonic 2 was intended, in part, to pay
homage to
Star Wars. The Death Egg appeared again in
Sonic Battle,
Sonic 3 & Knuckles, and in the arcade fighting game
Sonic the Fighters. Also featured in the
Sonic series was the
Space Colony ARK, a spherical space station which included the Eclipse Cannon, a weapon that destroyed half of the moon while it was not in full power.
* In
Kevin Smith's
1994 movie
Clerks,
Randal Graves tells
Dante Hicks that he didn't like
Return of the Jedi because he felt innocent independent
civilian contractors were killed when the
Rebel Alliance destroyed the second Death Star while it was still under
construction. A real roofing contractor overheard and told Dante and Randal that contractors should know what they're getting into, and it was their own fault for working on the Death Star.
George Lucas commented on this in the
Attack of the Clones audio commentary, by saying that the
termite-like
Geonosians would have been hired by the Empire, so there was no problem in killing them.
* Comedian
Eddie Izzard has often performed a popular routine in his stand up act in which Darth Vader visits the cantina on the Death Star. Izzard points out that a space station of that size must have had a cantina or a similar place to obtain food.
* The Death Star was also referenced in the box-office comedy hit
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (
1999). In the movie, the villain,
Dr. Evil, is just revived from his
cryogenically frozen state after several decades, and contemplates several potential evil schemes to achieve his objective of world domination. One suggestion Dr. Evil makes is that he will create a new superweapon by putting a gigantic "
laser" on the
moon to destroy
Washington D.C.. He amusingly dubs his newly formulated device "the Death Star," thinking he was the first person to ever conceive of such an ingeniously sophisticated weapon. (Since he was frozen when the
Star Wars movies came out, Dr. Evil is not aware of the Death Star.) When
Scott hears the name, he mocks his father by calling him "Darth".
* The
satirical newspaper
The Onion ran an article entitled "Death Star to Open Day Care Center" in
1996:
"After months of speculation, it was confirmed yesterday that the Death Star, the Empire's vaunted, planet-destroying space station, has added a new, state-of-the-art day care center to its already vast array of capabilities. The massive four-room day care center, which, according to Grand Moff Tarkin, will "provide a safe and fun learning environment for tots between the ages of one and four," has already begun spring enrollment and is expected to be fully operational by June 1."
The article concluded with quotes regarding the Day Care Center's safety:
"There is an opening in the Death Star's main shaft that leads to the core," parent and dissenting voice Annette Voss said. 'If a small rebel ship were to somehow break through the deflector shield and enter the shaft, it's possible it could hit the reactor core with a single, well-placed proton torpedo shot and destroy the entire space station.' Experts, however, scoff at Voss's theory, dismissing such a shot as "a million to one."
* In
Transformers: Cybertron, the mysterious purple ringed planetoid Planet X has strong similarities to that of the Death Star, including the ability to traverse great spatial expanses like a starship and an enormous planetary destructive cannon that came out of a 'hole' in the side of the planet.
*
The Presidents of the United States of America band also released a ballad about the Death Star on their 2000 album
Freaked Out and Small. The song features lyrics such as, "Somewhere deep inside / Shifty to the core / The tank is full and fuelled / By the Dark Side of the Force."
*
Ibrox Stadium, home of Scottish football(soccer) club
Rangers FC, is referred to as "the Death Star" by opposition supporters.
*
Enron, the former energy providing company was known to use the reference "Death Star" for itself to signify its power over its competitors, also a codenamed "Death Star" strategy involved sending electricity over transmission lines that Enron knew were already operating at capacity. The agency managing the lines would then pay Enron to divert its electricity to some other part of the power grid. After pulling this one off a few times, the Enron crew realized that they actually didn't even need any electricity to sell. They just had to threaten to sell it in order to collect tens of millions of dollars in fees that were ultimately paid by California's consumers and taxpayers.
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The Death Starfish moments before sinking |
*The Death Star was parodied in the 1997
LucasArts adventure game
The Curse of Monkey Island. The flagship of the main antagonist
LeChuck at the start of the game was named the
Death Starfish.
*In The
Master Of Orion series, planet-sized ships called "Doomstars" can be built and can mount a Stellar Converter (a planet destroying weapon).
*In the PC game Galactic Civilizations, ships capable of destroying entire star system, "Terror Stars," which strongly resemble the Death Star, can be built from Starbases.
*In David Morgan-Mar's
Irregular Webcomic!, several strips feature characters from the
Star Wars movies discussing the scientific flaws with many features from the movies, including those concerning the death star. [
1] [
2] [
3] [
4] [
5]
*In the
Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode
Life serial, "Trio" member
Andrew Wells paints a picture of the second Death Star on the side of a van.
*In the Adventures of Pete & Pete episode 'Sick Day,' Little Pete refers to his school as "the Death Star."
*In the game
OGame, the deathstar is the most powerful ship available.
*In
Sealab 2021, a space station called the "Death Star of David" serves as the headquarters for the Five Jew Bankers, the supposed masterminds behind the world's governments. Shaped like the
Star of David, the Death Star of David is also a superpowered weapon which the Five Jew Bankers use to destroy the headquarters of the Brotherhood of Neptune (a
freemason-like world-manipulating secret society) on Earth. This was only shortly after the Brotherhood of Neptune destroyed Sealab due to Captain Shanks's actions, which was shortly before the leader of the Brotherhood of Neptune (who just so happens to bear a passing resemblance to
Emperor Palpatine) proclaims to his suboordinate that the Five Jew Bankers are not a threat to them because they were the ones who created them.
*The head offices building of the
Coles Myer corporation in
Melbourne has been referred to in jest as "the Death Star".
