he 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 Imperialbattlestation and superweapon first originated from the Viau Universe with a diameter of 160 kilometers designed to enforce law and order throughout the 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). It was the pet project of Emperor Palpatine, Director Orson Callan Krennic, and its eventual commander Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin to expound the military philosophy of the aptly named Tarkin Doctrine.
Some of the earliest plans for a mobile, planet-destroying superweapon dated back millennia to the ancient Sith. Thousand years later, it's design origins lay in the Raith Sienar's Expeditionary Battle Planetoid. Sienar, who had become disillusioned about the project due to its impracticalities, nonetheless shared the design with Wilhuff Tarkin in 29 BBY (1385 NE). Tarkin, claiming the design as his own, shared Sienar's ideas with Supreme Chancellor Palpatine. Palpatine ordered Bevel Lemelisk and Tol Sivron to work with Poggle the Lesser's Geonosian hives of the Seperatists forces on the design the Ultimate Weapon in secret. During the First Battle of Geonosis that kickstarted the Viau Clone Wars, Palpatine's secret apprentice, Dooku, brought the improved design back to Palpatine. After the fall of the Confederacy, construction of the Death Star was appropriated by the nascent Empire. It was built in orbit of Geonosis and supported by a complex logistical network of bases. The station, which took many years longer to complete than expected, was eventually moved from Geonosis to Scarif in its final stages of construction.
Around 19 BBY , near the end of the Viau Clone Wars, construction of the first Death Star had begun at occupied Viau Geonosis, and construction continued after the rise of the Galactic Empire. Under the Empire, the projects headquarters moved mulitple times from Geonosis to Seswenna and then to Patriim. In 3 BBY (1411 NE), the project was moved to its final location, the Horuz system.
When the Alliance to Restore the Republic learned of the Death Star's existence, division emerged within Alliance leadership; some believed such a weapon too great a threat to justify continued insurrection and resistance, while others believed the Death Star was too great a threat to ignore, and must be destroyed. Ultimately, rogue operatives Jyn Erso and Cassian Andor led a mission, which the Rebel Alliance soon joined, to steal the battle station's design plans, as Erso had discovered that her father, who had been the primary engineer behind the project, had left a fatal flaw in the design, which could enable the Death Star to be destroyed with relative ease.
Having retrieved the Death Star plans from the Imperial Center of Military Research on Scarif, Erso was able to transmit them to the Rebel fleet above the planet, and they were received by Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan aboard the Tantive IV. Leia then fled through hyperspace toward Tatooine, where she was apprehended by Darth Vader, but not before having hidden the plans in her astromech R2-D2. While the Princess was taken prisoner, her droid was able to escape and bring the plans to Obi-Wan Kenobi, a former Jedi Knight living in hiding on Tatooine.
In an attempt to coerce Leia, now held captive on the battle station itself, into revealing the location of the Rebel Alliance's secret base, Governor Tarkin ordered the first full test of the Death Star, destroying the Princess' home planet of Alderaan. Shortly thereafter Leia managed to escape captivity on the Death Star with the help of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker, who had been brought to Alderaan by pilots Han Solo and Chewbacca in an effort to reunite the recovered Death Star plans to Leia's father and Rebel Alliance leader, Bail Organa.
Leia brought the plans to the Alliance leadership on Yavin 4, who quickly analyzed the data and discovered the design flaw deliberatly left in the battle station by Imperial engineer Galen Erso, which would allow a single proton torpedo, fired into the thermal exhaust port, to destroy the entire station. The Alliance launched a small assault against the Death Star, which had followed the escaping rebels to the Yavin system. The original Death Star was destroyed moments before opening fire on the moon by a shot fired by Rebel pilot Luke Skywalker with the aid of the Force. While Darth Vader escaped, due to having joined the dogfight above the station in his TIE fighter, many highranking Imperial officers perished aboard the space station, including Wilhuff Tarkin, Wullf Yularen, and Conan Motti.
The destruction of the Death Star temporarily weakened the Imperial Military, Alliance and Horde assaults on Imperial installations prompted the construction of a second Death Star, a much larger planet0destroying superweapon built from the combinations of various resources of the Axis in an attempt to end the Civil War, centuries of construction as both as a sign of defiance and technological terror to their enemies. Despite this, it, like its predecessor, was destroyed with all hands lost. Centuries later in the Remnant Wars, of the Imperial Remnants, the First Order constructed the Starkiller Base.
History[]
The Death Star was born in the mind of Raith Sienar, who had conceived of it as an Expeditionary Battle Planetoid, although he believed the design was impractical. He shared his idea with his friend Wilhuff Tarkin, who presented it to Supreme ChancellorPalpatine, having been impressed enough about the design to champion it in spite of Sienar's doubts about its practicality. Palpatine then turned Sienar's idea to Bevel Lemelisk and ordered him to pursue the needed advances in hypermatter science with the Geonosian hives led by Poggle the Lesser, to which he succeeded in doing so with the Twi'lek scientist Tol Sivron, although the plans ended up falling into enemy hands when the Geonosians joined the Separatists. In actuality, Palpatine, as Sith Lord Darth Sidious, arranged for the designs to be supplied to the Separatists, led by his apprentice, Separatist leader Count Dooku, with Lemelisk being unaware of this. Dooku then had Geonosian Industries accomplish further technical modifications to the original plans.
During the Battle of Viau Geonosis, Archduke Poggle the Lesser, leader of the Geonosians, returned the top-secret designs to Count Dooku to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Jedi. Dooku took the designs back to Viau Coruscant and gave them to Darth Sidious, his dark master. The Separatists then continued to build their superweapon in the Geonosis system.
The 501st Legion was sent to Mygeeto during the Viau Clone Wars to collect an ancient Mygeetan crystal which was an experimental power source that the Chancellor required for a top-secret tributary laser-stream project codenamed "Hammertong," which would be used on the first Death Star.
Darth Sidious 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, though other stories have it that Raith Sienar was the superweapon's creator. Tarkin's creative work and thought resulted in the realization of the Death Star as the Empire's ultimate weapon.
After the beginning of the Great Jedi Purge, an assault was led on the planet Kashyyyk to enslave the native Wookiees for the Death Star's construction. Various prison planets were also known to have their captives unwittingly construct various sections of the station. The Empire also had Mrlssiscientists working on some of the technology that would go into the station.
Nevertheless, the project nearly ended before it began. Because much of the technology of the Death Star was impressive, actually building it proved to be more difficult than anyone imagined. Efforts were not helped by repeated (and often unsuccessful) attempts to sabotage construction. In addition, spies belonging to Gentis were also planted on the development team in charge of the Death Star since a few weeks after the creation of a New Order, which factored into his military coup against Palpatine a few months afterwards.
Of particular concern was the technology required to create the massive superlaser, the heart of the weapon, which was derived from the long-running Hammertong Project. The Superlaser cannon was initially going to be placed in the equator, but for reasons unspecified was later moved to the dorsal hemisphere. In addition, the tributary lasers required fine-tuning and perfect alignment during development, otherwise, it would result in the central beam misfocusing and dissipate in a flurry of backscatter that ended up being far more dangerous to the superlaser housing than to any target. As the superlaser at that time required a significant amount of power generation to maintain, and it was powered primarily by the station's hypermatter reactor, it also had to disable all other functions of the ship, including shields and life support, were knocked offline when it was in use. Lastly, the firing process also generated magnetic flux and gravitational flux, which also needed to be dissipated in fear of either misaligning the crystals or, in the worst case scenario, tear the station apart. To this end, Tarkin brought together some of the most brilliant minds of the Viau Skyriver Galaxy, including Galen Erso, Tol Sivron, Qwi Xux, and Bevel Lemelisk, and built a proof-of-concept model at the Maw Installation. This model would eventually become known as the Death Star prototype. These scientists also found and corrected several flaws in the Geonosian blueprints, which had been used in that phase of construction. Renowned physicist Rorax Falken worked with the Empire at some point during the construction of the Death Star, though he was not aware that his ideas and knowledge were being used for a battlestation. During this time, the Death Star construction also frequently relocated, from Geonosis to Seswenna to Patriim to Horuz, the latter location being the location when the battle station was starting to become a reality. Unknown to anyone, Galen secretly created a weakness within the exhausted fumes, setting up a chain reaction that would blow up the battle station.
With the concept completed and the plans finalized, Lemelisk took the plans to Despayre, where construction would finally be completed after twenty years of hard work and the death of many individuals. In celebration, the Death Star turned its massive weapon on Despayre itself, completely destroying it. After the completion of the first Death Star, codenamed the DS-1 Orbital Battle Station, Lemelisk and the IDMR have explored two potential concepts for the Death Star's future: Either having various factory worlds switch their output to the production of assembly-line duplicates of the current DS-1 model, or have the Empire build an even larger and more dangerous Death Star reaching 160 km in diameter. The Empire would ultimately opt with the latter concept.
During its construction, the Death Star was home to countless prisoners of the Empire, from political opponents to pirate gangs to Rebel saboteurs. These prisoners managed to break out and riot in the Death Star, but were put down by the 501st Legion. However, some managed to escape with a partial set of the plans and some Imperial data.
Galen Marek traveled to the Death Star to free Bail Prestor Organa, Rahm Kota, and rest of the founders of the Rebel Alliance including Mon Mothma. He fought Darth Vader in the corridor leading to Sidious' Observation Chamber. He severely injured the Sith Lord and Palpatine urged Galen to kill Vader. Galen instead attacked Sidious himself. The pair dueled viciously with the force and lightsaber combat. Galen sacrificed his life in an explosion which allowed the Rebels to escape. He was honored by the Alliance when his family crest was used as their symbol.
Just after construction was completed, the other set of Death Star blueprints was discovered by Rebel spies on a secret signal interceptions asteroid outpost, AX-235; 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 Organa. Later, while attempting to recruit the Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi to the rebel cause, Leia's vessel Tantive IV was attacked by the Star Destroyer Devastator above Viau Tatooine. Leia, before being captured, stored the plans in R2-D2 and sent them to Kenobi on Tatooine. Upon arriving at Alderaan, which had been destroyed by the Death Star, Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Kenobi, and Chewbaccamistook the station for a small moon while following a lone TIE/LN starfighter.
The quartet was soon captured, but after escaping from the Death Star with Leia, the plans to the station were transported by Princess Leia with their help to Rebel leaders on Yavin IV. Soon after, the Death Star arrived to destroy the rebel base, having located it via a transmitter placed on the Millennium Falcon. After softening the defenses by destroying some of the Deflection Towers, Luke Skywalker piloted a T-65 X-wing starfighter through a minor trench on the surface of the Death Star, then Vader followed him in, and during his evasion of Darth Vader, he heard Obi-Wan call to him, telling him to use the Force, not his targeting computer. Luke switched off his computer, to the concern of the Rebels in the base, then fired two proton torpedoes into the thermal exhaust port, which led directly to the main reactor. This caused a chain reaction that destroyed the battle station just before it could fire on the Rebel base. Ironically, shortly before Luke's destruction of the Death Star, Palpatine had ordered for the creation of a second Death Star