"It's too big to be a space station"

I thought there was about a years gap between ESB and ROTJ? Since it is not featured in ESB just guessing. Was it 4 years?

 

To explain, I'm going to delve into some EU here (I know it's frowned upon in this section, but hear me out).
The Death Star was built within a cluster of Blackholes known as the MAW, right outside of the prison planet of Kessel. In the center of the MAW, there was an installation of Imperial design; many superweapons were built there, including the Death Star prototype.
Not many knew of the MAW Installation because none would be crazy enough to explore a cluster of black holes, and personnel was limited. The troops never left, the scientists never left. The only person that really came and went was Tarkin.

 

"I thought there was about a years gap between ESB and ROTJ? Since it is not featured in ESB just guessing. Was it 4 years?"

You are correct, it's about a year between ESB and ROTJ. Even though I don't think there is an official answer as to when construction began, I'd like to think that its more reasonable, considering the progress made on the Death Star, that they started building it only a few months after the destruction of the first. And ROTJ takes place about 4 years after ANH.

The second Death Star was a rush-job to get the superlaser operational as fast as possible, but I still don't think they could have made that much progress in just 1 year. It's not mentioned in Empire, but it was probably already well under way by then, IMO.

 

The reason it was built faster is because trail and error. The first one was a lot of trail and error whil they knew what they where doing on the second one.




Emporer Gerner Dark Lord of the Sith

 

That would be trial and error!

 

Ok fair enough. So you get the 4 years from possible EU sources and your point of view.

 

The fact that three years takes place between ANH and ESB and one year between ESB and ROTJ is official (I think) but I have not heard Lucas mention anywhere exactly when they started building the second death star. So if my speculations aint good enough, take or leave it. It's up to you.

Does anyone know if Lucas has stated anything about this somewhere? Like on the ROTJ DVD commentary? It would be good to have a definite answer on that.

 

I never heard that Solo was an Imperial Cadet for a while. I just thought that as a smuggler he had the opportunity to hear things like that.

 

Well it's all open for misinterpretation or speculation until he does confirm. I haven't read anything either. My point is from what I see on film. Your point is probably from the idea they couldn't of built the death star so quick. It's a plot hole. As we see the death star in ROTS I wouldn't be surprised if there is an excuse made and that you turn out to be correct.

 

I remember hearing the desciption of Chewie quoted above, including the part about Han, from way back, but don't ask me where.

As for building DS2, the opening crawl of ROTJ says:

Little does Luke know that the GALACTIC
EMPIRE has secretly begun construction on a
new armored space station even more powerful
than the first dreaded Death Star.

That certainly indicates it was begun after the events of ESB. So they're really quick in bulding it, making the decades they needed for the first one seem like a major plot hole. Maybe there labour and financing problems that held up construction.

 

^ Thanks Yankee, I knew there was something that gave me the impression it was half built in a year or so.

 

Clearly they took some shortcuts on DS2 to get the laser operational more quickly. But 20 years vs 1 year? That's a pretty amazing learning curve.

 

Or a pretty amazing plothole to argue about!

It should of never featured in ROTS and I agree something that size should never take 1 year to half build. So the SE of ESB should of featured just a glimpse of the construction and the scroll in ROTJ altered to compensate for the mistake.

 

Really a case where GL made a knee-jerk tie-in to the OT that didn't need to be there. Sure, it's nice to know the origins of the death star, but not at the cost of this major plot hole. Also, what's the deal with Tarkin: 20 years doing nothing but overseeing the building of this thing. You'd think he'd have gotten bored.

 

"Also, what's the deal with Tarkin: 20 years doing nothing but overseeing the building of this thing. You'd think he'd have gotten bored."

I don't mean to nitpick, but Tarkin was the head of the government of the Seswana sector and surely had lots of other responsibilities, like making new laws, over-seeing the budget and other political things.

Maybe the scroll would indicate only one year, but does it really make sense for the Empire to wait for three years? They obviously already has the technology and the knowledge from building the first one. Besides, they really need the Death Star. In the conference scene, one of the officers asks Tarkin how the Emperor will maintain control without the Senate, inplying that the senate had a very important buruecratic function and that the Empire will be doomed without it. Tarkin answers that fear of the Death Star will keep the systems in line. After its destruction, what will keep people in line now? It seems like there's a serious risk of the Empire defragmenting and that the Emperor would build a new one as fast as possible.

 

Amazing perhaps, but not unrealistic.

It's pretty much the same curve as for the first space shuttle. Once you build it and get it working, it's infinitely easier to build more.

The ratio of that "learning curve" is right on for new jet development and new vehicle design as well.

 

But the develpment of a a new jet or the space shuttle would include technical drawing, mock-ups, running simulations, etc. Very little of that time would be spent in actually building the finished product. But here, construction of DS1 is well under way at the end of ROTS.

Unless they were building it on a trial and error basis. I'd like to think the Empire worked a little more efficiently than that.

 

Where is the evidence that it only took 1 year to build the DS2??

And BTW it's not even finished

 

It's not finished, but it is "fully armed and operational". Can't imagine it takes too much longer to finish the rest of the superstructure.

As for when it was started, true, the scroll only says

Little does Luke know that the GALACTIC
EMPIRE has secretly begun construction on a
new armored space station even more powerful
than the first dreaded Death Star.

But to me that certainly implies that the start was recent, likely since the events at cloud city. In any event, I don't think they would have started until after the destruction of DS1, as the Empire likely thought it was indestructable.

 

Agreed. These opening scrolls are meant to fill the viewer in on events since the last movie. The ROTJ scroll strongly implies that construction on DS2 started after ESB.

 

Hmm, i'm not so sure. I get what you're saying, but there is not HARD evidence about when construction started except that it must have been after the destruction of the DS1 as it was thought to be indestructible.

 

Plothole this, plothole that. C'mon guys, this isn't SuperShadow's site (thank God) Lucas doesn't make plotholes. Just because *you* don't grasp the concept, doesn't make it a plothole. It's perfectly legit IMOHO simply because, like some people have said before..it's always more difficult to do something the first time. The second Death Star might have been fully functional, but it was far from complete. as evidenced with the way the Rebels got in and destroyed it. they flew right friggen into it for pete's sakes! Who knows how far from completion it truly was? Just because the weapons systems were up and running doesn't mean squat.

 

Ahh...it's the fans' fault again. Sorry!

 

It wasn't nessescarily one year inbetween ESB and RotJ. It could have been as much as 5 years...

And the DS2 wasn't completed in RotJ. It still had a long way to go. Also, have you ever made something like a lego creation or something weird like that, and it will take you forever, and then built it again and it only took 10 minutes? When your building it the second time it goes easier because you had had experience before. And another point, they still had to design the Death Star and all of it's weaponary, and it's large tractor beam. When building the second death star they already had the plans written out. Plans for something as large as the Death Star could have taken forever. Yet actually, in episode II they did have some basic features written out, I am sure they hadn't had the entire thing planned out.

 

27 years from first inception to final reveal to the public. what am i talking about? Stealth Bomber.

8 years in war time to develop an atomic bomb.

10 years to send a man to the moon.

It took 5 years to build the last Ark Royal !

20 years to build a first death star doesnt seem unreasonable to me !!