Books Death Star Owner's Technical Manual: Imperial DS-1 Orbital Battle Station

Hola Fleet Junkies:

Star Wars: Death Star Owner's Technical Manual: Imperial DS-1 Orbital Battle Station​

​

​

​

​

By the ever awesome trio: Ryder Windham, Chris Reiff, and Chris Trevas​

Conceived as the Empire’s ultimate weapon, the Death Star battle station is equipped with a planet-shattering superlaser. The station is heavily shielded, defended by TIE starfighters and laser cannons, and invested with firepower greater than that of half the Imperial fleet. The Empire’s imperious leaders have every reason to believe that their technological terror will induce fear across the galaxy. But the Death Star has one flaw.

This Haynes Manual traces the origins of the Death Star, from concept to a top-secret project that begins before the foundation of the Empire, which draws design inspiration from the Trade Federation’s spherical warships. In this manual, the Death Star’s onboard systems and controls are explained in detail, and are illustrated with an astonishing range of computer-generated artworks, floor plans, cutaways, and exploded diagrams, all newly created by artists Chris Reiff and Chris Trevas—the same creative team behind the Millennium Falcon Owner’s Workshop Manual. Text is by their Falcon colleague Ryder Windham, author of more than fifty Star Wars books.

Covering history, development and prototyping, superstructure, energy and propulsion, weapons and defensive systems, hangar bays, security, service and technical sectors, crew facilities, and within formation about the Death Star II and its planetary shield generator, this is the most thorough technical guide to the Death Star available.

Available to the masses to drool over Nov. 5, 2013.

And look! It comes with an actual proof of sales!



(I couldn't find a thread for this, so mods lock it and beat it into nonexistence if there already is one)

​

 

This looks really awesome, but I'm going to take the chance to mention how dumb I think it is that the Death Star page at Wookieepedia is "DS-1 Orbital Battle Station." Almost as bad as Jacen Solo being at Darth Caedus.

 

Are all the clones still at random strings of alphanumeric characters instead of the names that actual humans can remember?

 

Oh, Wookieepedia, you take geeky to a whole new level.

 

I'll probably pick this up. I got the Millennium Falcon one and thought it was pretty good. (I've also got the Concorde one and Titanic one).

 

Leland Chee should make another video for this one. Only this time instead of playing a Corellian mechanic, he should be an engineer at Sienar Fleet Systems.

But still on the caf buzz.

 

This is pretty significant. Why? Because the Millennium Falcon guide was written to be the last word on the subject - with all the various takes and floor plans of the Falcon over the years. I suspect that this will be true here as well. Maybe even something about that pesky "Death Star III"?

Let's check the official CSWE entries -

Dac See Mon Calamari.
Caedus, Darth See Solo, Jacen.
Death Star [no entry under "DS-1 Orbital Battle Station", naturally]

 

I hope this one comes with a warranty card.

 

Can't wait for this!
Hopefully there will be more in the series- The T-65 X-wing would make an awesome one, and would let them cover the mess that is all the variants, and give us pictures of the various XJ series craft.

 

I have the Titanic one on my Amazon.com wishlist (also, obviously with Death Star).

I also own: NASA Mars Rover, Apollo 11, Lunar Rover, NASA Space Shuttle, International Space Station and Lockheed 71-Blackbird. I like the book series, obviously!

 

If they continue doing these I would assume that it would be the X-Wing or TIE Fighter, although I would probably lean more towards the TIE Fighter as slightly more likely.

 

Well, It went Falcon, Death Star, so light dark, so light ought to be next. And X-Wing is slightly easier, as I'd imagine the TIE book would want to cover the dozens of TIE variants as well.

 

These things are neat to flip through, but an X-Wing one I would buy.

 

Yeah, I went slightly crazy purchasing all the space related stuff... going through a phase with that at the moment. Watched the mini-series "From Earth to the Moon" a few months ago, and now I am hooked on the era. Currently reading "Failure is not an Option" by Gene Kranz, next book to read in my library is "A Man on the Moon" by Andrew Chaikin.

 

Well, I think that's why they'd go with the TIE Fighter - the Falcon guide had a ton of stuff about the various YTs. The X-Wings doesn't have as much material, although I assume they'd probably include the Z-95s as well.

Come to think of it, the ISD might also be a candidate, being in all three of the OT (and earlier models being in two of the PT).

(I was thinking about the alternating Empire/Alliance models as well - they should be doing it that way even if they aren't)

 

An X-Wing book could do a quick section on the Z-95 and the ARC-170. There are also some variant X-Wings that would be nice to have more attention/answers for, like the TX-65 trainer, the Heavy-X from Galaxies, and the Tandem-X from Crimson Empire.

 

Good point, the ARC (which has at least two variants in itself to add in) would be included in the historical section.

 

The X-wing might have a bit more room for variants, as while the TIE fighter has a lot of history, TIE variants are usually different ships (Interceptor, Bomber, etc.). Not to mention I'd be excited to see how much history they could add in. The Millennium Falcon guide cited SWTOR's XS Freighter as inspiration for the Falcon's line, even the Dynamic-class is mentioned briefly, in terms of being fast freighters.

Especially recently, an overview of X-wing history could easily include Z-95 and the ARC-170. Might be nice if they include some NJO and later relations as well, but that would probably be a bit too much. A good deal of the Millennium Falcon guide focused on movie pictures and such (Falcon taking off from here, there, etc.). Their fictional guides have been quite good too, I think I even have the Enterprise guide lying around somewhere.

 

Preview of the Death Star Manual is up:

Here or here

First pic that I know of for the Eye of Palpatine, some Tarkin info, and Torpedo Spheres. Pretty awesome.

 

GrandAdmiralJello Your boy Ars Dangor is mentioned on like Page 1.

Also lol, the Eye of Palpatine really does look like an asteroid.

 

Also seems to have gone with 120km rather than 160km for the DS1 size.

Raising questions about whether it can count as "retconning" it or not.

Complete Vehicles as far as I know doesn't count as retconning the Falcon's size back down to 26m - but that might be because most of it is reprint, rather than new content.

 

Niiiiicceee.

The Eye of Palpatine reminds me of the Imperial asteroid from Mysteries of the Sith.

 

Wow. Is this the first source that's actually bothered to explain the discrepancy between the ANH Death Star plans and the actual ANH Death Star? It's taken them that long?

 

Well, it took them how long for a definitive look at the Falcon?