The Emperor and Vader look at the outline of the first Death Star.

The second Death Star, not yet completed

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The Death Star was an enormous military battle station in the fictional Star Wars universe. Two of them were built over the course of the series (although the real model, about 2 1/2 feet (76 cm) in diameter, currently resides in Seattle's Sci-Fi Museum). more...

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These enormous battle stations were infamous for their ability to destroy entire planets.

Description

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.

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. He and Vader are seen viewing the framework 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 hands of the newly-formed Empire.

Raith Sienar also had plans for a Death Star-like battle station. However, he later was executed by Grand Moff Tarkin so the latter 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. 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.