How much would the Death Star cost to build?

[Dave Ward]

A construction job of that magnitude would require a helluva lot more manpower than the Imperial army had to offer. I'll bet there were independent contractors working on that thing: plumbers, aluminum siders, roofers.
In order to get it built quickly and quietly they'd hire anybody who could do the job. Do you think the average storm trooper knows how to install a toilet main?

Good point, but like I was saying, there's slave labour to consider. You basically invade and enslave the planet Flushos and there's your plumbers right there.

Likewise, when you're powerful enough to plunder rather than purchase, costs are maybe going to go down somewhat. My thinking point was just that the costing on that link what based around what it would cost a democracy. Might be different for an evil empire. But then again, if I was an expert at building a death star, I'd ALREADY HAVE ONE. Bwah hah ha.

 

[Vermithrax 4]

Yeah, I knew I couldn't get on in on anyone on this forum. :lol

Kodiak33 just earned hiself a cold drink. An' after dat...I can eat fifty eggs. Anybody can' eat fifty eggs spends a night in da box.

 

[SSgt Burton]

I know you were having some fun with that Towering Inferno reference...

But I wonder if there was some actual inspiration there-

I mean there is that scene where Doug Roberts has to cross that electrical shaft when he, Mrs. Mueller and the kids reach the promenade room.

I'd have to take a screen grab but it sure has that Death Star chasm look to it.


Kevin

 

[Vermithrax 4]

LOL! There are certain similarities. Such as this:

Will Giddings: "We've analyzed the fire down on 35 and there is a danger. Should I have your express elevator standing by?"

Jim Duncan: "Evacuate? In the middle of the dedication party? I think you overestimate that fire's chances!"

:lol

 

[JoeG]

Good point, but like I was saying, there's slave labour to consider. You basically invade and enslave the planet Flushos and there's your plumbers right there.

Likewise, when you're powerful enough to plunder rather than purchase, costs are maybe going to go down somewhat. My thinking point was just that the costing on that link what based around what it would cost a democracy. Might be different for an evil empire. But then again, if I was an expert at building a death star, I'd ALREADY HAVE ONE. Bwah hah ha.

You need to watch this link

Clerks Death Star Contractors - YouTube

 

[jjdelong]

But no, these guys were obsessed with having two big balls

And christmas just came early for me with that comment hahaahaha

 

[Onli Won Kanomi]

21st century Earthlings trying to 'cost' the Death Star in our terms is kinda like Iron Age Romans trying to assess the cost of transcontinental railroad systems or suspension bridges ["they would require more iron than we can imagine ever being possible to produce Caesar!"] 2 millenia later, without knowing about the Bessemer process. Heck even at the beginning of the industrial revolution there were naysayers who said railroads were impossible because there wasnt enough steel production capacity in the whole world to build one. And they were telling the truth "from a certain point of view" - theirs, which didnt want to see that a way could be found to do what then couldnt be done 'yet'.

But despite the folly of trying lets have a go at it anyway eh...I like a lil folly sometimes.

Star Wars represents an near pan-Galactic civilization >20,000 years old when the Republic fell to Empire. Our real world's American Republic is >200 years old...when 19,800 years older America is, Death Stars expensive may be not mmmhmmm? More importantly the Galactic Empire represents a Kardashev level 2.5-3.0 civilization [21st century Earth is not even considered a real civilization on the K scale yet since we have access to the resources of an entire planet but don't actually use that much power yet...something like 0.6-0.7 iirc?] which means it uses more power than entire stars produce and has access to the resources of an entire Galaxy. Millions of planets producing so much metal that they can cover their entire capital [and other ecumenopoli planets like Taris in KOTOR] in metal buildings and produce enough FTL starships to cover the shipping to and from them [our supertankers would be as incomprehensibly metal rich to Romans as Death Stars seem to us] can certainly produce enough metal to build Death Stars even if it meant cracking an iron core planet open and siphoning that off they have millions of planets to choose from...though there would be plenty of asteroids to do it easier. Death Stars are rather small moon sized stations afterall.

And yes the Empire already had the 'improved' Death Star II under construction when the first was destroyed and had plans to build entire FLEETS of Death Stars but it wasn't to control rebellious systems as Tarkin no doubt sincerely believed.

I submit that Emperor Palpatine had the Separatists finalize the design of what was originally Raith Seinars 'expeditionary battle planetoid' for a far more important purpose; to build a fleet of superweapons capable of defeating the extragalactic invasion of the Yuuzhan Vong that Palpatine knew was coming. We know that Palpatine knew of the Vong threat because he had manipulated to have the Chiss [Grand Admiral Thrawns people, who also knew of the Vong] intercept the Jedi Order's "Outward Bound" scouting expedition ship to the far reaches of the Galaxy because a premature first contact between Jedi and Vong would have precipitated the Vong War before the Galaxy was ready for it. Meaning before Palpatine could build enough Death Stars to repel the Vong. We can only guess that Palpatine knew of the Vong through the Rule Of Two from his master Darth Plagueis who knew through the succession from Darth Bane who knew from the Sith Holocron of Darth Revan who knew from Canderous Ordo [later Mandalore] who encountered a Vong scout ship that fled out of the Galaxy when pursued prior to KOTOR.

So Palpatine knew an extragalactic invasion force of vast size had been assembling for thousands of years beyond the Outer Rim and when he saw Seinars concept for moon sized battlestations with hypermass reactors that could power weapons of unprecedented power [the Death Star superlaser when firing briefly attained Kardashev Level III power consumption] they were 'just what the doctor ordered' against the looming threat only he knew of...so he ordered Dooku to order the Sep leaders to design it in secret, then after the war had Anakin/Vader kill them to cover it up.

Then he had to pay for fleets of them which the Republic Senate would not have been willing to allow be built much less pay for...so the Republic had to go, enter the Empire. And the best source of funding when the State needs bigggggg money fast is to plunder the Church; the Jedi Order had to be destroyed so that Palpatine could appropriate their vast wealth.

Think about how much wealth Rome has after 2000 years accumulation [take a look at a map of its land holdings as a church compared to its land holdings as a once Empire not to mention a literally incalculably valuable art collection] and then ask how much of the SW Galaxy's wealth would the Jedi Order similarly control after 20,000 years since they don't allow their members personal property and their expenses are miniscule? If they didn't make a conscientious [and necessarily secret] effort to 'lose' money as fast as possible they'd eventually end up with nearly all of it since the State [the Republic] has real expenses of governing but the Church [Jedi Order] has almost none. The very existence of a 'low spending' Jedi Order as the SW Galaxy's church would inevitably become a galacto-macroeconomic choke point. The State would just as inevitably come to jealously covet the Jedi church's vast wealth that would in a few millenia eclipse the State's own so quel surprise that the Jedi found themselves with few friends in the corridors of power when Palpatine moved to destroy them and seize that wealth for the State to build fleets of giant battlestations to repel a galactic invasion with.

So there's the real secret of the 'cost' of the Death Stars and how they could be kept generally secret; Palpatine didnt pay for them out of the State's budget with the Senate looking over his shoulder and inevitably leaking the news like a sieve but rather with the confiscated accounts of the Jedi Order he destroyed to get at their money to secretly build his Death Star fleet with.

And he would have to have his second one nearing completion by the time the first went operational because it was the second that could engage Vong capital ships as well as Vong worldships [its not a coincidence the first Death Star was the size of a Vong worldship but the second much bigger] and that capability would be needed if/when the Vong found out what the Empire planned to have waiting for them.

Now I don't want to make it sound like I think Palpatine/Sidious was really the 'good guy' since whatever his ends might have been his means [enslaving a million Wookies to build Death Star 1, destroying billions on Alderaan, the entire manipulated Big Lie left hand vs right hand Clone Wars] were unquestionably Pure Evil...

...but even Han Solo wished for a Death Star when the Vong finally did invade the SW Galaxy, killing trillions.

 

[markomac]

How much is that in Republic credits?


Kevin

HAHA, my dad told me about this the other day and that was the first thing I asked him about it.

 

[greylocke]

Onli Won Kanomi, you make a really weird kind of sense. and that's frightening. You aren't an author by any chance are you?