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Death Star

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this satellite-sized battle station was developed by the Geonosians, under the direction of Darth Tyranus, from the original plans for the Expeditionary Battle Planetoid. After the Battle of Geonosis, these plans were refined by Tol Sivron and Bevel Lemelisk at the Maw installation, and the battle station was built by Bevel Lemelisk and Imperial Engineering. As the Alliance began to gather support, it was Grand Moff Tarkin who asked for a superweapon with which he could control the entire Outer Rim Territory, and the Death Star was the perfect weapon. It housed a huge superlaser which combined the output of multiple lasers into a single, focused beam. A huge focusing lens was built to accomplish this, located on the upper hemisphere. The superlaser was designed to be targeted at anything from a capital ship to a planet. This objective was known only to a select few, for Tarkin and the Maw's top scientists decided that they should downplay the role of superweapon to keep the project on schedule. In order to ensure continued cooperation of their employees, project engineers were told that the station would be used to break down dead planets, in an effort to reach the core of elements easier. To complete this ruse, the funding for the original Death Star came from funds diverted form the Departments of System Exploration and Public Works. The interior of the initial Death Star was planned to have 84 unique levels, each 1,428 meters in height. Each level was subdivided into 357 sublevels. The entire design was then divided into two hemispheres, each with twelve zones. The crew of the first Death Star consisted of 27,048 officers; 774,576 troops, pilots, and crewers; 378,576 support and maintenance crewers; 400,000 support droids; and 25,000 stormtroopers. Note that the Star Wars Trading Card Game - Battle of Yavin expansion set lists the Death Star's stormtrooper compliment at 25,984. The human inhabitants were provided with an array of parks, shopping centers, and entertainment facilities, since the average length of service aboard the station was to be six years without leave. At the north pole of the station was constructed a 100-story tower, which was heavily shielded and virtually impenetrable. This tower held Palpatine's operational headquarters, for those times when he was aboard the station. According to Imperial sources, the first Death Star took too long to construct, exceeding Palpatine's every deadline. Originally started during the Clone Wars, it was built in orbit around the prison world Despayre. Labor for the construction was taken at will from the prison below. When the first Death Star was completed, Tarkin ordered the superlaser tested on the planet Despayre itself. Needless to say, this initial test exceeded even Tarkin's wildest dreams. A second test was performed in the Alderaan System, when a captive Leia Organa refused to reveal the current location of the Alliance's main base. Imperial propaganda later explained that the destruction of Alderaan was caused by the Alliance, which tried to hamper the original tests of the battle station's weapons. However, despite its formidable weaponry, the original design was flawed, as it vented its main reactor directly to the outside. When the plans to the first Death Star were stolen by Alliance forces and delivered to the Massassi Base on Yavin 4, military personnel and technical experts under the command of General Jan Dodonna discovered this flaw. They believed that a proton torpedo could be fired into the exhaust shaft, resulting in a chain reaction that would destroy the station. During the Battle of Yavin, Luke Skywalker used a combination of luck and the Force to fire the fateful torpedo, destroying the Death Star from within. In the wake of the Battle of Yavin, Imperial propaganda claimed that the Alliance was to blame for the destruction of Alderaan. Propaganda went on to say that the Alliance "lured" the station to the Yavin System and destroyed it through treachery and deceit. The name "Death Star" was then "officially" used to honor the Imperial personnel who were killed in the destruction of the battle station. The original station was 120 kilometers in diameter, and had the following design features:

5 Access trenchs (2 at the poles, 2 midhemisphere, and 1 at the equator)
Surface City Blocks
Main Reactor Core with surrounding Power Cells
2 Ready Power Cells (midsection)
2 Hyperdrive Motivators, driven by 123 generators (midsection)
2 Sublight Drives (midsection)
2 Computer Cores
Deep Armory and Hangar Bays (bottom hemisphere)
Command Core (upper pole)
2 main Hangar Bays (upper pole and upper hemisphere)
Deep Storage Bays
Dry Bulk Storage Bays
Liquid Bulk Storage Bays
5,000 turbolaser batteries
5,000 heavy turbolaser batteries
2,500 laser cannons
2,500 ion cannons
768 tractor beam generators