Watching the Death Star being built in CGI timelapse video is no less intimidating than it would be in real life I’m sure, though thankfully nothing goes together this fast, at least not on this type of scale. The reactor core for this thing would have to be massive, as it would have to power the entire station as well as that increasingly devastating, planet-busting laser. If not for the Rebels the Death Star would have easily been the most powerful weapon in the universe, at least until the First Order came along with Starkiller base. The Starkiller could have destroyed the Death Star and the new Death Star at the same time as it’s been seen in The Force Awakens that it’s range was incredible and its destructive capabilities even more so. The Death Star couldn’t have hoped to match such power.
But watching this thing being pieced together you get a healthy respect for just how big it really is and how many people it would take to run the station. Even a skeleton crew would have to be in the thousands, as even automated systems wouldn’t be enough without a few hundred people monitoring each quadrant. Constructing the thing would be insanely difficult not to mention dangerous in some regards. The Empire would have likely used droids for a good portion of it until large sections of the interior could be pressurized and made safe for human workers. Or they could have been made to work in suits that could withstand the cold vacuum of space for long periods of time, though the cost in manpower would have gone through the roof I’m sure.
It would have been a dark and thankless job to start with until the power core was up and running and fully integrated into the rest of the station. Something tells me that would have taken a while, which means that portable lights and tools with their own power sources would have been necessary for quite some time. Once the core was installed and turned on though I can’t help but think that there might have been some hiccups along the way, as there usually is in the startup of any system. When you’ve got overlords like Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader breathing down your neck to get things done however I’m sure the people put in charge were adamant about how every system needed to be operational on time and without fault. Threats and ‘promotions’ such as Vader liked to dish out would have only gone so far and would have been more likely to waste resources since killing off anyone that disappointed you would be kind of foolish.
The Death Star was an impressive beast during its time but the obvious flaws that came in its design are still confusing to even those fans that are willing to accept the explanation for it in Rogue One. I mean really, there were so many scientists and engineers working on this thing that you would think that someone might have noticed an air shaft leading to the main reactor that could be a problem. Oh well.
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