The Death Star

The Death Star, also known as Death Star I, was a space station and superweapon used by the Galactic Empire. It was a moon-sized station that could use it's superlaser to destroy whole planets.

## History

### 22 BBY

The idea of the station was first spoken of by the man known as Tarkin, and in 22 BBY the planning of the station began in the hands of the inhabitants of Geonosis, known as Geonosians, and it's leader Poggle the Lesser. They made holographic plans of the station that Poggle later gave to his ally, the Sith lord Count Dooku, who in turn gave it to his master Darth Sidious on Coruscant.

### 19 BBY

Three years after the plans were handed to Sidious, the construction of the Death Star had begun. Count Dooku was no longer part of the project as he had been killed and replaced by Darth Vader, who together with Sidious watched as the station progressed towards completion, to later be used by their Galactic Empire.

The progress of the station was led by Director Krennic, with Galen Erso as the main engineer. Although, Galen came to change his mind about the morality of the station and left the project.

### 13 BBY

Six years after Galen left the project, he was forced back into it to help Krennic complete the work. As Galen still despised the idea of the station, he purposely designed a flaw within the Death Star in the form of an exhaust port. Firing into the port would result in the station blowing up. Galen made sure that the information of the weakness would get into the hands of the Rebel Alliance, who also was against the creation of the station and the Galactic Empire in general.

### 0 BBY

Thirteen years after Galen returned to the project, the Death Star was almost finished. The Empire had stolen kyber crystals from Jedha City on the planet Jedha that the Empire used to power the station's superlaser, and the station was finally finished after the laser disk was attached to it.

Tarkin, who worked as a Grand Moff within the Empire, later took control of the station and made ready to demonstrate some of it's power on Jedha. Many officers were present during the demonstration, including Director Krennic, and the Death Star targeted Jedha City and fired it's superlaser at it which destroyed the whole city and killed everyone located there and in the surrounding areas.

Later the weakness of the station was revealed to the Empire, and so all the engineers of the project was deemed responsible and eliminated by Krennic and his troops, exept Galen who soon died anyways as a result of a rebel attack on their base.

After this Krennic went to the planet Scarif. There the plans of the Death Star was located, and contained the weakness of the battle station. Krennic made it to Scarif just as the Rebel Alliance attacked the Imperial base there to get the plans and reveal the weakness. Grand Moff Tarkin found out about this and moved the Death Star into Scarif's orbit to destroy the base so the rebels could not get the plans. The base was oblirated by the station, killing Krennic and everyone else there, but the rebels had already succeeded in collecting the plans and had sent the information over to the rebel ship Tantive IV above the planet, who managed to get away with the plans leaving the Death Star vulnerable for a coming attack.

To finally make the station operational, Tarkin later ordered the destruction of a planet. This came to be the planet Alderaan, that was destroyed by the Death Star's super-laser which ended millions of lives.

After finding out about the location of the Rebel base that was in possession of the plans, which was the moon Yavin IV, the Death Star moved into orbit around the moon to destroy it. Although, while the station charged it's laser it was attacked by the rebels on the moon who assaulted the Death Star with several X-Wings and Y-Wings. Several TIE Fighters, as well as Darth Vader, was sent out to deal with the problem. They managed to take down the majority of the rebel ships but one of the rebel pilots, Luke Skywalker, managed to get to the exhaust port and fire missiles into it. As expected, the Death Star exploded shortly after this which ended the station and everybody onboard.

## Legacy

The Death Star came to be the inspiration for Death Star II, and later possibly the Starkiller Base used by the First Order.

## Appearances in chronological order

* *Episode III - Revenge of the Sith*
* *Rogue One*
* *Episode IV - A New Hope*

### Indirect appearances

* *Episode II - Attack of the Clones* (as hologram)
* *Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back* (mentioned)