DEATH STAR

In an Empire ruled through fear, nothing symbolized Emperor Palpatine's oppression better than the imfamous Death Star Battle Station. However, the Death Star also represented the Empire's greatest weakness: the tendency to consider technology supreme, and to underestimate its foes. This weakness resulted in the first Death Star's destruction over Yavin, although not before it had destroyed the peaceful world of Alderaan, killing billions of innocent people.

The Death Star was concieved by Grand Moff tarkin and approved by the Emperor. Drawing on concepts pioneered at many secret military installations, Chief Engineer Bevel Lemelisk designed the massive battle station. The Death Star was commanded by Tarkin, but Lord Darth Vader served as the Emperor's emissary and wielded the widest possible authority to enforce the Emperor's will.

The Death Star's centerpiece was an awesome, planet-destroying superlaser. The weapon was only used twice: first to destroy the penal world of Despayre (where the Death Star was built) and second to obliterate Alderaan.

Everything about the Death Star boggles the imagination. At 120 kilometers in diameter, it was the size of a Class IV moon and was the largest starship ever built (at least until the construction of the larger second Death Star). Fully half of the battle station's interior was filled by the reactor core, the sublight and hyperdrive systems, and the superlaser housing.

The station had a crew of over 265,000 soldiers. Gunners, ground troops, starship support crew, and pilots brought the total onboard personnel to nearly 1 million beings. Even more amazing, these figures indicated minimum crew standards.

For weaponry, in addtion to the superlaser, the Death Star had 15,000 capital ship turbolasers and over 700 tractor-beam projectors. These projectors could capture virtually any ship and, when working in conjunction with one another, could reel in even an Imperial Star Destroyer. The Death Star also maintained an awesome array of support ships and vehicles, with 7,000 TIE fighters, four strike cruisers, over 20,000 military and transport vessels, and over 11,000 combat vehicles.

Despite all these awesome advantages, simple errors doomed the station. First, the Death Star's defenses were built around the idea of repelling a capital ship attack; starfighters were considered "insignificant" by Imperial military strategists. And when the Alliance mounted its assault over Yavin, the Rebels could send only a small force of X-wing and Y-wing fighters. Grand Moff Tarkin considered the attack inconsequential. He refused to launch TIE fighters in defense of the station, and only the TIE fighters under Lord Vader's direct command were deployed against the Alliance's fighters.

As a result of those errors of arrogance, the mightiest weapon in the galaxy was destroyed by a simple proton torpedo fired down an unshielded exhaust vent. This Achilles' heel allowed the Empire's enemies to detonate the Death Star's power core and win the Battle of Yavin.