Lit Death Star 2

Do we even have proof, that the thing we see at the end of ROTS is identical to the one seen in ANH?

Joking aside, when the Empire constructed the first DeathStar, it had to contend with a Galactic Senate, that still had some teeth left like military and budget supervision. Remember Tagge's concern in ANH about "evolving sympathies in the Senate for the Rebellion" and that this august body was removed only during the same movie. It is also possible, that the resources for the DS1-project came solely from Tarkin's Oversector Outer, while for the 900 km large DS2 there was no Senate to worry about and the Empire commited more resources (and could do so, since they had spent the last twenty years in building up their ISD-fleet and garrisons to satisfying level or as satisfying as it could be for the Imperial Brass).

As for asking, why a DeathStar was needed? Does the word "planetary shield" ring any bells? In ROTJ Executor and two ISDs weren't considered a problem for the rebel-assault on DS2, while the planetary shield had to be deactivated for the attack to succeed (despite a dozen MC-cruisers present) and in TESB we have Executor and five ISDs incapable of destroying the rebels theatre-shield above Hoth from orbit.

I would think Tagge agreed with the DeathStar as a concept, but unlike Tarkin or Motti he was professional enough to not be drunk on power. And considering, that more ships after the Battle of Yavin meant also more power for him ... .

 

Its a good point, but yes as mentioned above I think the answer would be first and foremost planetary shielding, possibly other advanced defense systems being in place like Ion cannons, and the ability to effectively counter a Star Destroyer with capital ships of your own. Judging from the numerous EU superweapons and other advanced weaponry throughout the old timeline, I would personally believe blowing up or simply devastating a planet would be a relatively easy task. To me the Death Star represents the ultimate weapon not by the fact it can blow up planets, but in that it can defeat planetary shielding, is very mobile, and no fleet of warships or defense could put up an effective fight against it.

Back to one of the original questions, never really bought into the idea of cost, resources, or labor problems would delay the construction of the Death Star. My POV explanation for it taking so long would be just plain technical difficulties and integration. Making a moon sized battlestation that goes through hyperspace, and has a planet shattering super laser would probably present numerous engineering challenges.

 

Legends reverted to the 120 & 160 km figures (Death Star Owners Workshop Manual) and Newcanon has, so far, kept those (Ultimate Star Wars).

 

What does the oak care, when the wild sow chafes against it?

 

Ah, well spotted. I had not considered planetary shielding.

 

In Aftermath: Life Debt - 3 Star Destroyers were ordered to bombard Kashyyyk to lifelessness - they use a mixture of bombs dropped direct from the destroyers, and turbolaser blasts. There was a implication that it would take quite a while.

 

Personal head canon: Death Star(s) destroying planets were just a means for Palps to get the necessary dark side points to unlock immortality feat (much like Valkorion\Tenebrae\Vitiate did on Medriaas and Ziost).

 

I only read the books

 

I think it would cool if a future book explains that the Empire was basically backrupt by the time of ROTJ because their military expenditure was greater than their economy could sustain. If the Revels hadn't won, the Empire would have suffered economic collapse anyway.

 

Then there's this novelization coming out . . .

 

Isn't that roughly what happened to the USSR - over-spend on military - resulting in a damaged economy?

The EU dropped hints that the Empire was "nearly bankrupted" by spending - though the specific near-bankrupter varied - Pellaeon said it was the Executor in Darksaber - The Essential Guide To Warfare said it was the entire fleet of SSDs rather than the one ship - and the Death Stars and other superweapons probably contributed as well. The Sun Crusher was apparently very expensive to develop.

 

Palps probably thought, "Why take the time and effort to train and gather 8000 Sith Lords when I can just build a laser?"

 

In the Han Solo Trilogy - a point was made of how taxation had risen so high that the average Imperial citizen was struggling to put food on the table (for Han and his friends on Nar Shaddaa it was less of an issue since they didn't pay tax).

Emphasis on "nearly" - so it didn't actually go bankrupt.

 

In Battlefront: Twilight Company, Star Destroyers are characterised as "the most resource-intensive ships the galaxy has ever seen" by Chalis - with Kuat being the only shipyard that can maintain more than a handful at a time. Hypermatter may be very expensive to obtain in the quantity needed to run the entire Star Destroyer and SSD fleet.

 

That's exactly what i was thinking. Didn'tstar trek use that example for the Klingon's problems in Star Trek... 6?

 

Wasn't that just Coruscant and not most of the galaxy?

 

That was Thrawn's deal to. He's was much more about using conventional ships and weapons combined with new and innovative tactics in order to defeat his opponents. He wasn't big on the showy but ultimately impractical "superweapons."

Hopefully he's portrayed in a similar way in the new novel and in Rebels.

 

I've actually been asking about fuel and the costs for it in this thread, although with litte result: http://boards.theforce.net/threads/origins-of-fuel-in-the-galaxy.50041796/#post-53791941

How can the Sun Crusher be expansive to develop, if one is constructed in a laboratory within a bunch of black holes, that has been closed of from the rest of the galaxy for ten years and where the only population worth noting consists of the crew of four ISDs?

Concerning the Klingon economic problems in ST6, their main source of dilithium (the moon of their homeworld) had just blown up and they didn't have the resources to protect/clean up their homeworld from the damage and maintain their huge military at the same time. However we learn in ST8, that the Federation contains 150 member-worlds and since Romulans and Klingons are supposed to be of comparable power (and also single-species empires) they can't have much more in terms of worlds. At the height of the Dominion-war the Klingons had 1,500 ships on a war-footing which suggest that their Navy can't have more than 3,000 ships (assuming an unlikely reserve as large as the number of ships fighting).

Compare this to the Galactic Empire with its millions of worlds (1.79 million according to the EA) and their 25,000 ISDs. The Empire could have probably paid them by asking every citizen on Coruscant for ten credits.

 

Tarkin probably left some extremely expensive Research & Development resources behind - with them using up most of it.

 

Not "Peak Oil" but "Peak Hypermatter"?