Affiliation: The Galactic Empire
Manufacturer: The Galactic Empire
Model: DS-1 Orbital Battle Station
Modularity: None
Production: Unique
Material:
Quadranium-lined Durasteel Hull
Titanium-reinforced Alusteel Frame
Transparisteel Viewports
Turadium Blast Doors/Shutters
Length: 120,000 meters
Width: 120,000 meters
Height: 120,000 meters
Armament: Extreme
x1 Concave Dish Composite Beam Superlaser (Spencer Ray)
x5,000 Turbolaser Batteries
x5,000 Heavy Turbolasers
x2,500 Laser Cannons
x2,500 Ion Cannons
x768 Tractor Beam Projectors
x1,000 Proton Torpedo Launchers
x1,000 Concussion Missile Launchers
Reinforced Hull
Advanced Battlestation Deflector Shields
Grated, ray shielded, p-trap exhaust port
Hangar:
x584 squadrons of fighters
Special Features:
Standard Battlestation Ion Drives
Advanced Battlestation Hazard and Damage Control Systems
Advanced Battlestation Life Support Systems
Advanced Battlestation Navigational Systems
Advanced Battlestation Sensors and Targeting Systems
Advanced Battlestation Communications Systems
Advanced Battlestation Environmental Control Systems
Advanced Battlestation Tractor Beams
Advanced Battlestation Escape Pods
Advanced Holonet Transceiver and Encryption/Decryption Networks
Maneuverability Rating: Very Low
Speed Rating: Very Low
Hyperdrive Class: 4.0
Strengths:
Superlaser: The Death Star has a superlaser capable of destroying entire planets.
Heavy Weaponry: The Death Star has over ten thousand turbolasers capable of vaporizing enemy warships.
Heavy Shielding: The Death Star has heavy deflector shielding capable of withstanding any bombardment.
Thousands of Fighters: The Death Star has thousands of fighters capable of destroying any one-man fighter thread.
Invasion Force: The Death Star has over a thousand Imperial Walkers and stormtroopers capable of taking any planet by force.
Fear: will keep the local systems in line, fear of this battlestation.
Thermal Exhaust Port:
Slow:
Expensive:
Lack of Fighter Screening: Their ships are so small they're evading our turbolasers.
The basic structure of the station was a sphere the size of a small class-IV moon, with a kilometer-wide trench containing docking bays running around its equator. It was the very incarnation of the Tarkin Doctrine. Because of its size and shape, it was sometimes mistaken for a small moon.
The first Death Star, like its successor, was divided into two hemispheres, each subdivided into 12 bridge-controlled zones. The northern hemisphere held the main armament of the station, a fearsome superlaser. This weapon had the external appearance of a bowl several kilometers wide. When activated, eight separate beams were each activated by a crystal through the Particle accelerator tubes, amplified through rings, and conjoined to form one of eight separate beams that would converge outside the dish, focusing into a point to form a single incredibly powerful superlaser beam. The power settings of the superlaser were adjustable, allowing for the destruction of naval vessels and planets alike. Blasts with the power to destroy naval vessels could be fired roughly once every minute, while planet-destroying blasts could only be fired once per day. This superlaser was powerful enough to destroy even a shielded planet with one shot.
The Death Star was said to comprise eighty-four separate internal levels, stacked south to north. Each level was separated into 257 sub-levels. A nominal number of sub-levels were then to be stacked around the surface of the sphere, encompassing the inner stacked levels. A number of the Death Star's docking bays were reserved as executive docking bays for high-ranking personnel, featuring larger facilities and more significant defenses.
Facilities included parks, shops, and other amenities for the Human crew, as well as numerous maintenance necessities such as trash compactors, like Garbage Compactor 3263827. The entire hull of the planetoid was covered in quadanium steel.
The battlestation also included two massive sublight engines in the midsection, as well as a formidable hyperdrive system. Driven by 123 individual generators tied to one navigational matrix, the Class 4 hyperdrive was fast enough to allow the Death Star to travel thousands of light years from Alderaan to Yavin IV in only a few hours. All engineers working near the highly radioactive engines were forced to wear radiation suits in order to keep harmful exposure to a minimum. Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin once likened walking inside the Death Star's interior to walking inside the Caves of Corips, but with illuminated tubing and plastisteel replacing the natural surroundings.
Near the northern pole, a hundred meter tower was constructed and shielded to near impenetrability for the Emperor to use as personal quarters while on board. Operational command of the space station took place from the overbridge, which included the conference room. A high-speed shuttle system was reserved for officers to use in order to traverse the station quickly.
The Death Star's design included a small but significant flaw: an exposed thermal exhaust port. Although the exhaust port was eventually installed as per the original design plan, at one point in the construction process it was identified as unnecessary. When the architect responsible for overseeing the area asked the Wookiee overseeing construction of the area to not build the port, he insisted on getting the amendment to the plans in writing. Before the architect had a chance to submit such an amendment, the Wookiee became ill and was confined to a medcenter, and his replacement built the port as specified in the plans. The port was only two meters wide, approximately the size of a womp rat; lay at the end of a large trench in the hull of the battle station; and was ray shielded against energy weapons such as laser cannons.
As impressive as the Death Star's design was, its armament and defensive measures were also extensive. Its primary weapon was its Concave Dish Composite Beam Superlaser, which had been included by Bevel Lemelisk into the final design. The entirety of the Death Star's spherical design, including the majority of its interior volume, was dedicated specifically for the support and maintenance of the superlaser. Although Tarkin had initially intended for the Death Star's weapon to "rock a world to its very core," the final superlaser design was capable of shattering worlds, leaving behind only asteroid ruins. The diameter of the superlaser cannon well was approximately 35 kilometers. The energy for the superweapon originated from deep within the battle station, and was channeled into an array of eight initiator laser cannons. The eight laser cannons, via tributary beams, then converged into a central nexus point above the cannon well to form a powerful single beam. The magnitude of the superlaser could also be set to varying levels, with one power level for the beam being sufficient enough to be used against enemy ships. In addition to destroying planets effortlessly, the superlaser's full power possessed more firepower than half of the Imperial Starfleet. There were also plans for installing a composite beam superlaser as an alternative due to the challenges to building an operational, single-beam superlaser, which required a mechanical arm to move it into place, although the plans were scrapped when the engineers resolved the technical difficulties of the planet-shattering superlaser. At full power, the superlaser required a standard day (24 hours) to recharge, while usage of the superlaser against spaceborne vessels only required a minute of recharging. The Death Star's superlaser likewise required eight superlaser firing stations: Four primary stations plus four backups in case one of the stations failed. The superlaser was also a dangerous weapon even to itself, so various safeguards were also implemented to prevent the battlestation from being consumed by its own power, with several being resolved via Project Hammertong. One of these were the tributary beam shafts, with eight lining the circumference of the superlaser weapon. The tributary beam shafts, originally meant for Hammertong, were constructed at Desolation Station. Focusing coils also lined the tributary shafts to maintain the beams integrity. The tributary beams also had to be perfectly calibrated and aligned: Otherwise, the central beam would misfocus and dissipate, resulting in a flurry of backscatter that could severely damage or even destroy the superlaser housing. Magnetic fields and gravitational flux were also generated during the firing process, necessitating their dissipation to prevent the amplification crystals from becoming misaligned as well as the battle station from becoming torn apart.
A downside to the installment of the superlaser was that the Death Star had to remove all but the most rudimentary shielding capabilities in order to achieve such destructive power. However, its surface-to-air defenses were sufficient enough to make up for its lack of efficient shielding. It possessed 5,000 Taim & BakXX-9 heavy turbolasers, 2,500 Borstel Galactic Defense MS-1 ion cannons, 2,500 Borstel Galactic Defense SB-920 Laser Cannons, and 15,000 Taim & Bak D6 turbolaser batteries that acted as its surface-to-air defenses. The SB-920 batteries were largely congregated around the Death Star's trenches, and were powerful enough to destroy starfighters with a single shot, and utilize an advanced Target Acquisition and Targeting (TAT) system similar to that of certain Imperial surface-to-air defense systems. The XX-9 heavy turbolasers used on the Death Star were also variants that had four sections and were overall larger. However, because of a safety mechanism built into the turrets to ensure they either don't end up causing friendly fire or otherwise deter hijackers from attacking its post, it was disadvantageous to use against starfighters due to it automatically locking up when any part of the Death Star was within their sights. Besides defense, the turbolaser batteries also acted as directional markers for TIE fighter pilots.
Shield-projection towers were also on the Death Star's surface, which emitted energy fields that covered the Death Star's city sprawls, protecting them from space debris as well as providing limited defense against energy weapons, due to most of the Death Star's energy reserves being harnessed for the superlaser weapon. At least three shield-projection towers were necessary for a city sprawl, with their power cells, machinery, and shield-operator stations being located at the bases of the towers. In addition, they were also highly concentrated around the tower containing the Emperor's throne room, for obvious reasons. Shield operation fell under the jurisdiction of Battle Station Operations, with various officers, operators, and technicians being tasked with manning the shield-projection towers' stations as insurance that the shields were always in full working order. During battle, the shields of neighboring sprawls could overlap to create a continuous blanket of energy over the surface.
The Death Star's hull plating was made of military-grade Quadanium steel, most of which had been drawn and processed from asteroidal metal. Because of the challenges of not only creating the material necessary, but also producing enough to install the plating onto the station, several sections of the Death Star were pressurized during the installation of the hull for efficiency purposes, such as storage space for supplies during construction as well as temporary habitats for laborers. The Death Star's hull from a distance appeared relatively smooth to the naked eye.
The Death Star also had 768 modified Phylon Q7 tractor beam projectors, of which 24 were assigned for each zone of the Death Star. The projectors in each zone could concentrate one or all of their tractor beams onto a single target from a significant enough distance to ensnare distant enemy ships in a virtually unbreakable energy bubble, as well as being powerful enough to capture the vessels long before the vessels' sensors could identify it as a battle station instead of a small moon. Each required a crew of ten to operate, and were coupled to the main reactor to prevent accidents caused by generator malfunctions. There were seven power coupling terminals in all, identified atop a 35-kilometer-tall generator tower, and providing energy for more than 700 tractor beams. However, disabling even one of the coupling sites from the main reactor would result in the tractor beam becoming inoperative.
It also had access to 11,000 combat vehicles, as well as more than 7,000 TIE fighters, shuttles, and other craft.
Owing to the totalitarian and rigid command structure of various Imperial organizations, the Death Star's command structure, known as command sectors, was also just as rigid.
Nominally, the battle station was under the direct command of a triumvirate composed of Army Command, Naval Command, and Battle Station Command, represented by High General Cassio Tagge, Admiral Conan Antonio Motti, and Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin, respectively, although when the Galactic Emperor made visits, his authority superseded theirs. Below them were the Operations Chiefs for the Army, Navy and Battle Station Operations, all of whom were held by officers with the rank of colonel. Below each Operations Chief, there were eight majors, each representing specific departments under their branch of operations, alongside four majors tasked with the general, service, technical, security, and military sectors (the last including Army troopers, the Death Star troopers [a subset of the Imperial Navy troopers], gunners, and TIE pilots). Lastly, lieutenants were tasked with supervising the command sectors and were the lowest-ranked officers to do so, relegated to Command sector duty posts.
The only exceptions to the command structure were members of the Stormtrooper Corps, and the Emperor's emissary Lord Darth Vader, the latter of whom answered to Grand Moff Tarkin alone. Members of the Army and Navy portions of the Death Star could call upon the stormtroopers' services if necessary, although with the firm understanding that they fell under neither jurisdiction and were to obey the Emperor alone.
Development Thread: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Intent: To recover the Death Star from an alternate timeline for use by the Galactic Empire
Who Can Use This: The Galactic Empire
Primary Source: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/DS-1_Orbital_Battle_Station
**THIS IS A CANON ITEM**
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