Death Star II

"Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battle station!"

- Emperor Palpatine

undefined The Death Star is a fictional space station featured in the Star Wars multimedia franchise. Per the original canon, it is the second such station featured in the original trilogy, and as such, is identified as Death Star II per this database. The Death Star II appeared in the third installment of the original film series, Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi in 1983.

Description & History
The Death Star is an orbital space station with deep space travel capabilities. It was designed, built and operated by agents of the First Galactic Empire under the leadership of Emperor Palpatine. As indicated by the opening crawl of Return of the Jedi, the Death Star II is even larger than the original Death Star, making it by extension, considerably larger than a small moon.

By the end of the Galactic Civil War, Emperor Palpatine was ready to unleash the awesome might of his new favorite toy, the Death Star. He was irritated that the commanders in charge of the station were lagging behind in their construction duties and paid a personal visit to the station to put some boots to asses and make sure they got back on schedule. Seriously though, they didn't even have the siding put up yet on half the damn thing. Because construction was still underway, the Death Star could not sustain its own force field and had to rely upon a force field generator that was stationed on the nearby forest moon of Endor. Because of this, the Death Star had to maintain geosynchronous orbit around the moon.

So even though the station was a bit drafty due to lack of hull plating, it didn't stop Palpatine from prioritizing its firepower first. Like the original Death Star, the Death Star II was armed with a big honkin' space gun; the kind that could blow up a planet with a single shot.

The members of the Alliance to Restore the Republic had been long aware of the Empire's plans to construct this station, and had taken measures to learn as much as they could about it. Two human operatives from Telfrey named Tay Vanis and Yom Argo went on a top-secret mission to recover data tapes relating to the design schematics of the station. This action was performed in collusion with operatives of the Bothan spynet who likewise labored to obtain the critical data. In truth, all of these efforts were well known to Palpatine. He allowed the plans to be stolen, knowing that the Alliance would then plan an attack against them. What they didn't know was that the station's superlaser was primed and ready. The Emperor intended on baiting them into attacking the station at a supposed moment of vulnerability and then eradicating them all with that station's massive weaponry.

When the Alliance forces were finally able to analyze the Death Star plans, they put together a plan of attack that was not altogether dissimilar to the one they used when they fought up against the first Death Star. During the Battle of Yavin, the Alliance had a one-man fighter fire a torpedo into the thing's butt-hole, which caused a chain reaction that ultimately blew up the station. With Death Star II, the same plan was put into play, except that this time that station's butt-hole was big enough to fly a friggin' freighter through it! Serious design flaw there. To make matters worse, Mon Mothma guilt-tripped everyone into capitulating to the plan by stating, "Many Bothans died to bring us this information today". Way to go, Mon, you little motivational speaker, you!

Now while the Rebel fleet attacked the Death Star en masse, there was also the matter of the shield generator bunker. A small strike force commanded by Han Solo went to Endor to knock out the generator. Despite the fact that they were intercepted by an entire legion of the Emperor's finest troops, the Rebels still managed to secure a victory with some help from some spear-chucking, vine-swinging Ewoks.

Lando Calrissian was selected to lead the fighter attack against the super-structure itself, with the might of the entire Alliance fleet behind him. While Lando and a squadron of X-wing fighters engaged imperial forces, one Rebel took a more personal interest in the Death Star - Luke Skywalker. Skywalker allowed himself to be captured by Imperial forces, knowing that he would be brought aboard the Death Star and presented to Emperor Palpatine. The Emperor still had it in his head to corrupt Skywalker and blathered on about the Dark Side of the Force at length. To prove how muy macho Team Palpatine was, he demonstrated the Death Star's capabilities by having his superlaser target and destroy one of the Alliance's capitol ships. At this time, Luke engaged in a final lightsaber duel with his father, Darth Vader, aka Anakin Skywalker, aka Big Daddy D. In the end, Vader turned against his master, picked up the Emperor and chucked his old, wrinkly ass down a reactor shaft. The fight took too much out of Vader and he died moments later.

As Luke managed to get his father's body loaded onto a shuttle, Lando Calrissian and his crew succeeded in delivering the kill-shot that set off the Death Star's reactor. All remaining ships were able to clear the area before the station exploded.

Armament

 * 1 Big-ass mega-blaster friggin' awesome space gun
 * 15,000 turbolaser batteries
 * 15,000 heavy turbolaser batteries
 * 7,500 laser cannons
 * 5,000 ion cannons
 * 768 tractor beam generators

Notes & Trivia
"Bang, bang, boom, boom? Damn, that thing's operational!"

- Rallo Tubbs


 * A parody version of the Death Star II was featured in the 2010 animated comedy special, Family Guy: It's a Trap!. In addition to having all of the same perks as the theatrical version, this Death Star also employed a Latino housekeeper named Consuela. In one scene, the Emperor gives the order, "Fire at Will, Commander...", at which point the superlaser fires, killing Will Robinson from Lost in Space.