The Death Star
The DS-1 Orbital Battle Station, or mk. 1 deep-space mobile battlestation better known as the Death Star or Death Star I, and known to the public as the Imperial Planetary Ore Extractor, was a massive Imperial battlestation and superweapon with a diameter of 160 kilometers designed to enforce law and order throughout the Galactic Empire with the threat of planetary destruction. It started off as the Separatist Ultimate Weapon before becoming the Expeditionary Battle Planetoid Development Initiative or Project Death Star after it ceased to be a Separatist project and became an Imperial one in 19 BBY (1395 NE).
The Death Star was a moon-sized imperial battlestation constructed by the Galactic Empire from the Viau Universe, armed with a planet-destroying superlaser. The Death Star was the first in a long series of superweapons developed to execute the Tarkin Doctrine. The Death Star was designed to allow Emperor Palpatine to more directly control the Galactic Empire through fear. In most instances, a Death Star was to be commanded by a Moff.
One Death Star was completely built by the Empire, with a second one supported by the Axis of Empires centuries later in the Great War. The had been some factions of the Axis and the Horde tempted to built their own weapons and Durga the Hutt, respectively.
Both Death Stars were destroyed by the Alliance shortly after they became operational. The first Death Star was destroyed by Luke Skywalker, with the help of Han Solo, and the second Death Star was destroyed by Wedge Antilles, Lando Calrissian, among other Allied pilots. Prior to the second Death Star being built, the Galactic Empire tested out a planetary superlaser for protecting its installations on the planet of Dubrillion. At some point after the second's destruction, the Alliance also attacked and destroyed other planet-devastating superweapons followed, including the Galaxy Gun, the Darksaber, the Sun Crusher, and the World Devastators.
Description[]
The Death Stars, the Galactic Empire's ultimate terror weapons, were battle stations several hundred kilometers in diameter and mounting a directed energy superlaser capable of completely destroying a planet with a single shot along with 15,000 lasers, ion, turbolasers batteries, and heavy turbolasers in all plus an additional 768 tractor beam emplacements. However, the first Death Star's defenses were not tight enough to stop starfighters from penetrating them.
The first Death Star was 120 kilometers in diameter, while the second Death Star was 160 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, which possessed an output equal to that of several main-sequence stars. Within this chamber burned a reaction of prodigious proportions, fed by stellar fuel bottles lining its periphery.
Splitting the station into two equal hemispheres was a huge equatorial trench approximately 503 kilometers in length for the first Death Star and 2,827 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, recreation areas, and taverns such as the Hard Heart Cantina could be found in the general sectors of the station.
Facilitating the Death Star's realspace propulsion was 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. After firing a blast, though, the Imperial engineers had to recharge the reactor, which took at least 24 standard hours. Though the energy output of this blast could be scaled to fire at smaller targets such as capital ships, as was the case during the Rebel assault on the second Death Star, the two major instances in which the superlaser was fired were at full power at planetary bodies.
The Death Star's interior followed two orientations. Those areas closest to the surface were built with concentric decks with artificial 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[]
Death Stars[]
DS-1 Battle Station (Viau)[]
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Main article: DS-1 Orbital Battle Station |
he DS-1 Death Star Mobile Battle Station,, also called the DS-1 Orbital Battle Station, was originally designed by the Geonosiansbefore the Galactic Republic and later the Galactic Empiretook over the project. However, the plans for the battle station were stolen by the Rebel Alliance from Scarif,leading to its destruction at the Battle of Yavin, but not before it unleashed its planet-destroying cannon on Alderaan, Jedha City (Jedha), and the Imperial Archives on Scarif.
Gilo[]
The Death star in the Gilo universe was a battle station that stood as not only a symbol of an iron fist tyrannic rule but also as a symbol of peace. It was around a third of the size of the Viau and FIlo version. A second version of the Gilo universe was in the works but was destroyed by Filo Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker