Where was the Death Star?

That is incorrect. Leia had already given forth Dantooine as the location of the Rebel base when Tarkin opted to go forward with his "effective demonstration" on Alderaan. It's quite clear within the context of the film that Alderaan was the first world the Death Star so destroyed.

 

Short answer: Alderaan was destroyed to send a warning to other Rebel-controlled systems.

I doubt it. We know that Tatooine is remote, and it's questionable how much control the Empire even had over it (the Republic obviously didn't have much; we don't know how much stronger the Empire was). It wouldn't make sense to have the Death Star near any system whose loyalties are unknown and/or controlled by mobsters.

Plus, we have to assume that ISDs in general, and Vader's flagship in particular, have top-of-the-line hyperdrives.

 

Who says Vader's SD traveled so fast?? We see his SD leaving orbit of Tatooine, then about a half hour or more later, we see it approching the DS, after atleast 3 days passed in the movie (the droids wander desert, captured by jawas, sold to Lars, Lars dinner, Binary sunset, R2 runs away, next day searching for R2, Tusken attack, Ben Kenobi, Ben's hut THEN we see Vader in his SD approching the DS.)

Fast? Not to my eyes.

 

I would think that they fired that gun at least once before...maybe at nothing...maybe at a planet...a moon...who knows? I refuse to believe that Tarkin and Vader would be on the thing the first time it fires. I mean, that's a damn big gun. If it has enough power to blow up a planet it certainly has enough power to meltdown and destroy itself and the station around it.

Carnage

 

A couple of days in transit isn't bad to cross what could be the better part of the galaxy.

 

It would not be smart to have the Death Star in the Tatooine system. As remote as the planet is, it apparantly still has a lot of space crafts going to and from Tatooine regularily.

No, the Death Star was probably built around an unpopulated world like Hoth where no one would be going.

As to the question if Alderaan was the first test firing of the weapon- I'm not sure. Alderaan is certainly the first "effective demonstration" but they could have dstroyed some barren unknown planet to test it first.

Perhaps when Motti said "the final checkout's completed" he could have been refering to a possible test firing.

 

According to the novel Slave Ship, this wasn't the case. During one of the many scenes in which Kuat of Kuat (yes, that's his name ) muses on various matters, he recalls his decision not to have the Death Star nor any of its subsystems constructed at the Kuat Drive Yards. His reasoning was that once the Death Star was functional, there would be less demand for KDY's fine ships from the Imperial Navy. He also figured that the Death Star would cut into his consumer base another way -- by killing them.

 

That's the EU thing I was thinking of. It doesn't really fit considering what I've read says that the planet was destroyed after the Death Star was completed.


I'm just gonna say it was in the same place that it was at the end of ROTS.