"The Force Awakens" (with SPOILERS)

That's what I was assuming.

 

Remember, Death Star II, in ROTJ, is much bigger and supposedly improved in many ways from Death Star i that gets smoked in ANH.

Presumably many of the propulsion and weapons subsystems are carryovers.

But I presume also it's the same situation as the movie "Contact": "First rule of government/galactic spending, why build one when you can have two at twice the price?"

My supposition is that while Death Star I was under construction and put into operation, DS II was being built at about the same time at a relatively out of the way star system.

When DS I was taken out, Palpatine says, "oh shit," and orders DS II to be expanded/ upgraded to a bigger badder Death Star.

So Death Star II gets toasted too and the Empire goes up in flames with it. So 30-some years later, the First Order, otherwise known as Empire Jr., not having learned One Goddamn Thing from Death Stars I and II, decide they're going to build an even bigger and badder DS III this time around.

 

A lot of that makes sense. Or Death Star I was the prototype, and DS II was the next generation and already in development or even under construction. Kind of like how there's 10 different kinds of every plane, with better avionics, improvements to fix control problems, make it more versatile, etc. Some of the things they were finding but couldn't fix while building DS I, they were upgrading for DS II. Galen even said they would have finished DS I with or without him, so it makes sense that there are lots of people working on the Death Star project.

After DS I gets blown up, construction on DS II gets sped up -- especially since the rebellion is just starting in Rogue One/A New Hope. DS I was a peacetime project with a slower timetable. DS II was a wartime project, with a more pressing timetable. It would've had to have been under construction or in the works during ANH, but gets put on an accelerated schedule by the time of ROTJ (especially once Palpatine uses it as a centerpiece of his Jedi Games).

Thanks for helping me talk this out. It's probably all supposition, but at least it's logical supposition.

 

Yeah, DS I had to be the prototype/ test vehicle.

Remember, at the end of ROTS, with Luke/ Leia newborn infants and Darth Vader newly sealed in armor, DS I is already taking place, at least in skeleton form. So DS I is under construction probably 22-24 years altogether.

From the time DS I gets blasted until The Battle of Endor is 3-4 years (maybe 5). So obviously the construction timetable for DS II is kicked into much higher gear. But I would certainly assume some work had already been going on.

 

FIFY

 

Yeah, I also assumed the second Death Star had been under construction for years given that it was bigger than the first. I didn't have a sense of exactly how long, then Revenge of the Sith came out and made out like it took 20 years to build the damn thing.

 

Just watched Return of the Jedi with my son today (his first time - kid can't stop singing the Imperial March #futuresithlord #Teamdarkside) and realized they state in the opening scrawl that with the original DS destroyed, the Empire has begun construction on a new DS. So, no, the Death Stars were not built concurrently. The destruction of the original prompted the construction of the second, though, this time Palpatine ordered that the weapon be made capable before the completion of the living quarters, casino and restaurant wing of the Death Star.

 

Well, that's true ... from a certain point of view.

Maybe before ANH and the blasting of DS I they called it the Security Star or the Empire Star or The Big Enchilada, and when Luke nuked DS I Palpatine says, "Guess we better put this one in the 'high priority project' department."

 

At this point in the discussion, shouldn't this be merged with the geek thread?

 

Nerd alert: I read an EU novel called Death Star, and some of the characters were the restaurant owners, bartenders, etc. on the Death Star. Guess it's not too far fetched. It's basically a small planet people lived on.

 

Well yeah but we passed that point about 50 pages ago.

 

I don't mind having a separate Star Wars thread, but I do see the point.

By the way, I guess this deleted scene from The Force Awakens has been out for a while, but I just saw it today. Unkar Plutt tracks down Rey, pisses off Chewbacca and things go the way you might expect if you piss off a Wookie.