Lit Death Star 2

I've always seen at least in Palpatine's mind (And i believe i've read this somewhere though i may be wrong it was a long time ago) that Palpatine's end goal was to have a Death Star in every system, not just one (Though now that i think about it that might have been the concept of a Fan film so...yeah don't take me seriously there) . And why not if the Death Star is a allegory for the nuclear bomb, why have one, why not have several. Of course i've always considered that the construction of Death Star II took less time was because by that time the Technology had been refined to a point where it would be easier to construct such a device. And since the Emperor seems like the kinda guy who money is no object to him, he'd probably just squeeze planets dry of resources if necessary to have a arsenal of Death Stars under his command.

Though i used to jokingly say they took the wreckage of the First Death Star and tried to put some of the peaces back together to make the second

 

Well the big question is could the Empire actually become bankrupt. The EU points to rim worlds being that way while the core is fine which makes sense. Also the advancement of technology causing an even bigger DS to be made in 3 years while DS I took 20 is a big leap. The implication that it may have severely hurt the Imperial economy for just the first one leads me to assume that it would get even worse with how much the second one must have costs. That and wouldn't the resources be to exhausted after the first one?

 

I'm not a Sovietologist, but as I recall, what screwed them in the eighties was the oil market. True, their economy was never the healthiest and their military budget was obscene, but oil was their biggest source of revenue and IIRC it was no longer bringing in the cash they needed in the eighties. Largely because the Saudis were flooding the market with cheap oil.

And yes, that comment from Pelly seems nonsensical. I assume that, in-universe, it was just hyperbole somehow. Either that or maybe the Empire was going through a rough budgetary patch at the time, so rough that even the construction of one additional ship was straining its resources, but that's hard to imagine.

 

There we go.

 

Do we know that the thing at the end of ROTS actually is THE Death Star? And not some prototype? I'm not sure I have ever seen a confirmation of that

 

Seems it: http://www.starwars.com/databank/death-star

 

Not to mention that the DVD commentary was pretty unambiguous about that.

 

I don't think the Imperial/Republic Credit is fiat, simply because its noted in several sources that the resources of the InterGalactic Banking Clan help supply it and the numerous other currencies in the Galaxy. This seems to mean that the Imperial Credit is backed by resources.

As for bankruptcy, I find it hard to believe that the Galactic Empire could ever go bankrupt. It's a galaxy-spanning empire. Even sector-spanning powers like the Hapes Consortium, Corporate Sector and Bothan Space make the USA and Russia look like Lichtenstein and Hong Kong in terms of size and resources accessible to them.

 

Bothan space was independent? I don't remember that.

 

It's one of the Allied Regions, so its varied from independent to autonomous.

 

The ship in ROTS isn't the Tantive IV, since that shows up in TCW and ANH looking exactly the same, though.

 

Yeah, that's the point I'm making.

 

Oh, I thought you were pointing to how a slightly similar ship in ROTS was the exact same in ANH.

 

Weren't there people complaining loudly that it was a mistake to have the ROTS novel (and possibly other tie-ins) call the ship the Tantive IV, because it was so different (albeit subtly) from the ANH one?

As such, the retcon that it was a different ship after all, might have been greeted with delight by those people.

 

My problem lies with the kyber crystals. For the first death star they were being hauled as far as clone wars (Crystal crisis on Utapau) and were still being delivered a few years before Yavin (that Rebels episode). So how and where did the Empire get enough crystals for another DS in such a short time?

 

They found the Ilum system, with planetary bodies full of crystals?

Might also explain where the Starkiller came from - they took one of the minor planets in that system and started transforming it into a superweapon.

 

I, for one, think it's perfectly right that the blockade runner in ROTS isn't the Tantive IV. And I don't think retcons are inherently bad, far from it.

 

According to the ROTS DVD commentary track, John Knoll (iirc) said it was meant to be a different model, but "obviously from the same factory".