 | |
| DS-1 Orbital Battle Station | |
|---|---|
| Production information | |
| Manufacturer |
|
| Model |
DS-1 Orbital Battle Station |
| Class |
Deep-space mobile battlestation |
| Cost |
At least |
| Technical specifications | |
| Length |
120 kilometers |
| Width |
120 kilometers |
| Height/depth |
120 kilometers |
| MGLT |
10 MGLT |
| Engine unit(s) |
Sepma 30-5 sublight engines (2) |
| Hyperdrive rating |
|
| Hyperdrive system |
Equipped |
| Armament |
|
| Complement |
|
| Docking bays |
Several landing bays |
| Crew |
|
| Location information | |
| System |
Horuz system (currently) |
| In orbit of | |
| Usage | |
| Role(s) |
|
| Era(s) | |
| Affiliation |
|
| Constructed |
21 BBY (phase one completed) |
| Earliest sighting | |
| Known commander(s) | |
| Points of interest |
|
The DS-1 Orbital Battle Station or the Death Star is a massive Imperial superweapon to destroy planets that the Galactic Empire hates during The Last of the Droids. It was originally a Separatist Ultimate Weapon to destroy Republic war cruisers but once the heroic Separatists were killed by Darth Vader, the Republic took the weapon and named it Project Death Star. It is overseen by Director Krennic. Its construction project is codenamed Project Stardust.
History
Separatist heroic plans
Originally the Death Star was known as the Ultimate Weapon for the Confederacy of Independent Systems. Poggle the Lesser handed the design to Count Dooku as it was meant to destroy Republic cruisers of evil and used for heroic purposes. Dooku took it to his master Darth Sidious and he changed the Ultimate Weapon to make it blow up planets instead of used for CIS heroic cause. The Separatists did however make a superweapon using Kyber crystals in 20-19 BBY.
Construction
By 21 BBY, the Republic Special Weapons Group developed plans for both an automated battlemoon asteroid and a torpedo siege platform, neither of which made it past the design stage.
Those privy to top-secret intel concluded that the plans for the Death Star must have fallen into Republic hands during or shortly after the Second Battle of Geonosis in the same year, with Supreme Chancellor Palpatine presenting the plans to the Republic Strategic Advisory Cell shortly after the battle in the cell's second briefing. The Strategic Advisory Cell planned the construction of the Death Star and regularly met at the summit of the Strategic Planning Amphitheater of the Republic Center for Military Operations on Coruscant. There, a mixed-species gathering of 150 beings from prestigious and influential positions met to discuss progress on the battle station. The meetings included select senators; representatives from Corellian Engineering, Kuat Drive Yards, and Rendili StarDrive; key advisers; the chief of naval intelligence; the director of COMPOR; high-ranking members of the military; members of the War Production Board; structural engineers; starship designers; theoretical and experimental physicists; Dr. Gubacher; Prof. Sahali; Lieutenant Commander Orson Krennic; Vice Chancellor Mas Amedda; and Supreme Chancellor Palpatine. The Jedi were not invited to the meetings, nor did they even know about the project under construction over Geonosis.
All members involved in the construction of the battle station were required to sign the Official Secrets Oath. Near-unlimited funding was provided to the project owing to Republic fears that the Separatists had their own battle station under construction, which intelligence surmised was the reason Count Dooku failed to attack the station over Geonosis. Geonosian Leader Poggle the Lesser maintained his position that the Separatists had no project of their own in the works. Despite this, most cell members refused to take Poggle at his word and scoured the galaxy to locate the presumed construction site. While the evidence was specious, rejecting the possibility would have jeopardized Republic funding for the project, regardless of the authority ceded to Supreme Chancellor Palpatine by the Emergency Powers Act. Thus, Republic effort into constructing the battle station was viewed as a priority in order to beat the Separatists at their supposed own.
Funding for the project would have been viewed as spurious before the Clone Wars. However, as the war dragged on, more and more research firms were dragged into government contracts focusing on a different aspect of the space station, such as in shielding or power supply, and all unaware of what their research was ultimately for. Researchers involved in defense projects were required to sign the Official Secrets Oath.
Initial construction on the Death Star had been carried out by newly designed machines, some of which were controlled by sentient operators stationed in orbital command habitats. A vast array of ships provided the station with metals, organic materials, and supplies of water. Viable asteroids were towed and tractor-beamed to the station from both around the planet and from fields surrounding the Geonosis system. Once mined, ores were sent to foundries in synchronous orbit for the production of durasteel and other metals. Cannibalized droid factories built by Baktoid Armor on Geonosis's surface allowed additional foundries to go online soon after the start of asteroid mining.
In 21 BBY, after the Second Battle of Geonosis and before the first anniversary of the First Battle of Geonosis, the Strategic Advisory Cell announced the completion of phase one of the Death Star's construction. The supports for the station's superstructure at one hundred and sixty kilometers from pole to pole had been completed. The next phase of construction revolved around the fabrication of a temporary equator, along with a series of longitudinal bands to roughly form the sphere. As the bands were secured, construction of the hull commenced, along with the partitioning of individual interior sections. The cabin spaces were to be clad, sealed, and pressurized in order to permit the use of sentient laborers in addition to droids.
Initial sentient labor estimates were in the millions. A Strategic Advisory Cell subcommittee considered providing the Kaminoans with a template to grow a labor force of clones adapted for deep-space work. Orson Krennic independently negotiated a deal with Poggle the Lesser: in return for his cooperation with the Republic, he would have his Geonosian workers begin construction on the facility. Instead of being punished, Krennic was given greater oversight over the project by Mas Amedda. After several months, workers had completed the station's false equator, with what Krennic described as looking like "an antique gyroscope" rather than an actual sphere. Following this achievement, several degrees of the upper hemisphere were outfitted with latitudinal structural members, and rudimentary layout work had begun on cladding a portion of the curved hull. Construction droids devoted themselves to fashioning the first interior spaces meant to serve as placeholders until actual cabin spaces could be bulkheaded. The Geonosians were the first organics planned to inhabit the life-support modules. In the wake of Poggle's announcement of the project to the Geonosians, tens of thousands of drones had been transferred to Orbital Foundry 7, the second-largest structure in view from the command habitat. The drones oversaw the construction of enormous pie-slice-shaped concavities that, when assembled, would form the battle station's focusing dish and power well. By this time, three slices had been completed, and another six were in various stages of completion. The drone laborers were overseen by winged soldiers, loyal to castes overseen by Poggle, who had a lavish suite linked by a series of tubular connectors to the foundry.
The plan for assembling the station's dish called for assembling it in space and maneuvering it by tug and tractor beam into a gargantuan well that had been framed into the sphere's upper hemisphere—the dimple, as some called it. The parabolic dish was engineered to telescope away from the hull to facilitate aiming the early composite-beam proton superlaser design some of the Special Weapons Group scientists had proposed. Because design on the weapon had been incomplete by the time construction had started, most individuals involved in the project held the notion that function would have to follow form. Orson Krennic was placed in charge of the construction, assembly, and installation of the dish.
As a result of his cooperation, Poggle was allowed a ship to travel between Geonosis and the station. Poggle's production philosophy revolved around forcing the drones to perform work that was beneath their skill or caste level as a means of increasing their final output. As a result, the drones were unhappy with their situation. Weeks later, the last of the pie-slice dish modules had been fabricated, but the dish itself was not fully assembled and the upper hemisphere still undergoing finishing touches. Droid work fashioning cabinspaces in the pole region had proceeded slower than expected. During this time, Geonosians began dying off en masse because they lacked work—a unique physiological trait of the Geonosian species. Poggle insisted that this provided competition and adequate motivation for the laborers to work harder. Marines were required to exterminate workers that refused to follow orders. By 19 BBY, the Geonosian labor force engaged in a full-scale riot, destroying three months of work in the process. During this time, the battle station's parabolic focusing dish was nearing assembly, hull cladding had been added, and interior spaces had been bulkheaded and made habitable. Living conditions for the drones had been improved, and every attempt made to limit overcrowding. In reality, the riot was a diversion to allow Archduke Poggle the Lesser to escape aboard his small craft, which had a hyperdrive secretly installed by his drones.
Kyber crystals were scoured from across the galaxy in order to construct the station, with the Separatist Alliance doing so by the end of the Clone Wars.
In 19 BBY, Supreme Chancellor Palpatine sent the 501st Legion on a mission to Mygeeto where they were to collect an energy sample that would be used in the station's superlaser of the soon to be formed Galactic Empire. During the last few weeks of the war, the Separatist Council debated on ways to prolong the war, to allow their secret weapon time to be finished. However, they were killed by Darth Vader during the Mission to Mustafar, putting an end to any plans they had for the station.
Krennic and Palpatine
Following the Clone Wars, Emperor Palpatine put Krennic, who had been promoted to the rank of director, in charge of the Death Star. Tiaan Jerjerrod, an architect and starship designer from Tinnel IV, was enlisted to help build the megaweapon. Chief engineer Bevel Lemelisk was also a key official in the project, codenamed Stardust.
Early on into the Imperial Era, Krennic was tasked with moving the under-construction Death Star to Despayre to prevent the New CIS from finding out about the Empire's plans.
Appearances
Star Wars: The Last of the Droids – "Building Droids: Part 1" (mentioned only)
Star Wars: The Last of the Droids – "Building Droids: Part 2" (mentioned only)- Star Wars: The Last of the Droids – "Building Droids: Part 4" (First appearance)
- Star Wars: The Last of the Droids – "Vader Down" (mentioned only)
- Star Wars: The Last of the Droids – "Through Imperial Eyes"
- Star Wars: The Last of the Droids – "Verge of Greatness" (appears in hologram)