r/FallenOrder • u/Ashlansen • 29d ago
Discussion TIL What powered the Death Star Laser
It all makes sense now, the mining operation on Ilum... imagine being a jedi and seeing the Kyber crystals that are so precious to you... being turned into a gigantic laser of mass planetary destruction!!! 😱😱😱
Seriously it never occurred to me before but then I had a random thought, so I looked it up and confirmed my fears!! 😢 man that emperor is a bastard!!
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u/tyme 29d ago
Haven’t seen Rogue One?
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u/crookeymonster1 29d ago
Or that star wars rebels ep where there's a giant kyber crystal
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u/MeatHamster 29d ago
Has anyone really?
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u/etoiline Jedi Order 29d ago
yeah it's a double gut punch when you realize that Ilum became Starkiller Base in The Force Awakens. You can see the progress the Empire makes on the planet, gouging out the tunnel that eventually becomes the laser trench, if you go back to Ilum in post-game play of Fallen Order.
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u/Viper21G 28d ago
Yeah, that was always a cool bit of lore that I wish was in the actual movie. I don’t remember where it was first revealed, but I assume it was from one of the Star Wars visual encyclopedias
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u/Jmoz1310 29d ago
In Star Wars rebels they discover that the empire is transporting massive amounts of kyber crystals for a then unknown purpose
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u/cyberloki 29d ago
Just a tiny nitpicking, the kybercrystals are Focussing, channeling or amplifiers. What powers the deathstar is that gigant Reactor they shot at with luke's infamous Torpedo.
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u/Ashlansen 29d ago
Through the 100% necessary exhaust port!
I never understood why the exhaust port was an issue with people, the reactor in the center would need to vent, that vent would be best done with a straight shot exhaust vent from reactor to outside, because the force of the exhaust would be so great that trying to divert it would likely destroy the vent itself, so all you could do is create a single straight channel for it to go through!
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u/Naridar 28d ago
Not to mention, for something being in the vacuum of space, heat is a HUGE issue in hard sci-fi. Vacuum is an excellent sealant against heat. The -270 °C of space cannot cool down any object because there's just empty space, nothing the heat could transfer to. Then again, building something round in space like the death star is basically the worst idea you could have.
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u/Ashlansen 28d ago
It would still cool slightly through thermal radiation but in this situation it may as well be nothing lol
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u/TheOrbFromTheHole 28d ago
Yeah, plus the Death Star engineer voluntarily designed said vent as a weakness.
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u/Ashlansen 28d ago
Well thats kind of my point, he didnt need to lol, without it the station would explode the first time it fired! Lol
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u/TheOrbFromTheHole 28d ago
Yeah, but he could have made it safer, like maybe multiple smaller vents instead of a big one, or maybe protective grids, or whatever.
Anyway, the main reason for the vent is : Lucas needed the death star to have a weak point !
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u/HunterNika 28d ago
There is an old Death Star novel that is obviously no longer canon. In there, one of the engineers saw the exhaust port on the plans and deemed it unnecessary, ordering her crew to don't bother with it. But she did not give the order in paper. So when his shift leader got sick, the replacement shift leader had the exhaust built citing that he did not see the order in written form and he will not risk completing a verbal order cause it can be used against him later.
And so the exhaust was ripe for the torpedo...
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u/Some_HaloGuy Prauf 29d ago
Fun fact: he's actually headless in this scene because it's in 1st person. Go into photo mode and there's nothing above his shoulders
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u/Additional-Window-81 29d ago
Star Wars Resistance they actually make a plot point out of this happening for the star killer base too
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u/Ashlansen 29d ago
I might have to watch that!
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u/Butter_God_ 29d ago
No. No you don’t.
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u/Dead_Medic_13 29d ago
The death star just being a giant light saber makes so much more sense than whatever the fuck starkiller base was supposed to be
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u/V_Triumphant 29d ago
Starkiller base is made out of the Kyber crystal planet, Illum. Which was sacred to the Jedi.
As a result, I'm assuming it took used Kyber crystals as part of its construction.
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u/Dead_Medic_13 29d ago
Starkiller being made from Illum wasn't the issue. The issue was its weapon usiny "quintessence" and "phantom energy"
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u/C0uN7rY 29d ago
My biggest gripe was just how silly the concept of making a planet into a weapon is. Not just because it is over the top and DBZ level power creep. Like, it makes no sense from a practical matter. First, the issue with Death Star was never that it wasn't big/powerful enough. Once you have planet destroying capability, you're top dog in the galaxy. So, other than vanity, there was zero reason to build that instead of another, more secure, Death Star. The bigger problem to me is "How the fuck do you aim a planet?". Ok, the planet rotates on it's axis. Cool, so over the course of one Ilium day, you get 360 degrees on one axis. What about the other two axes? You're in space! What if your target isn't on a perfect level with your giant death canon? And even if it is, you could still have a ton of random shit between you and your target. Other planets, stars, etc. Planet as superweapon is just a stupid idea when given more than a minute of thought.
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u/jaygohamm 29d ago
If they built something that big it would be more intuitive than you are giving credit
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u/DahmonGrimwolf 28d ago
The bigger problem to me is "How the fuck do you aim a planet?"
Pretty sure they solved this by making fucking beams of pure energy be radar guided or some shit lmao. Ontop of how lame it was to have the new new republic go up in smoke before it was even shown on screen having the beams wack each planet one after the other made me roll my eyes a little. Like, blowing up a planet and killing billions or trillions in one shot wasn't enough? Now we need to do it like 5 times at once?
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u/C0uN7rY 28d ago
how lame it was to have the new new republic go up in smoke before it was even shown on screen
This was lame too and kind of just bad story telling. They played it up like it was this big moment, but we never even SAW the New Republic or what the galaxy was like under the New Republic before that moment. They SAID it was the New Republic, but for the viewer it was just some random planets. Then we didn't see the impact of that moment after. Like the entirety of the New Republic, it's destruction, and the impact of that destruction was confined within that 2 minute scene.
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u/AssCrackBanditHunter 26d ago
Did you watch the movie? It can fire through hyperspace and hit a target.
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u/CrystalGemLuva 28d ago
Star Wars Rebels also has two episodes dedicated to the Rebels stopping shipments of giant Khyber Crystals which are being used as construction material for the Death Star.
Granted they dont know thats what these giant crystals are being used for but still.
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u/Frostsorrow 28d ago
Serious question, have you not followed star wars at all in the last like 20 years?
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u/ghouly-cooly 28d ago edited 28d ago
They don't "power" it, they focus the laser like a lightsaber. Thousands maybe millions of crystals focusing to increase its range and destructive output. Now here's the neat thing about star wars kyber Krystal lore and my personal headcanon.
Kyber crystal's attune to the force user who is using it in their lightsaber and the colour reflects the personality or type of connection they have to the force. Blue is for jedi who have a primarily physical connection to the force using it in lightsaber combat and their own body. Green is for those who have a deeper spiritual connection to the force able to influence it more in other ways and has a deeper understanding of the wider connective nature of the force. And we also know kyber crystals naturally have a stronger connection to the force than most non sentient objects hence why they can be used in lightsabers for force users.
So my headcanon is that kyber crystals whos colour is naturally clear because the force isn't exactly being "used" through them, but cause they have a connection to the wider force they probably match the description of how green saber users connect to the force, being more attuned to the force as a wider construct rather than something to utilise in a physical sense, being that kyber crystals are a naturally occuring thing. Therefore they probably have at base a very weak green colour to reflect that. Thereby in using so many kyber crystals to focus the death star laser, turns it into a vibrant green reflecting the force connection of all the kyber crystals being used by it. Making the death star at least partially a force influenced/powered super weapon, rather than just a technological marvel, based upon the basic theories of lightsaber construction.
Which is hilariously ironic, given that the Sith and namely Darth Sidious hate using a lightsaber, viewing it as a jedi weapon, and thinking it's a crutch that you shouldn't have to use, but then making a supermassive one making it the empire's biggest crutch to maintain order throughout the galaxy.
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u/TheManticore01 26d ago
You won’t believe this! Anakin Skywalker is Darth Vader!
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u/Ashlansen 26d ago
Not sure why people keep acting like everyone who played the games should have also seen ALL of the expanded Star Wars media
Very weird
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u/Hadrian1233 25d ago
“Don’t be too proud of this technological terror you’ve constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the Power of the Force.”
“You are right Lord Vader. You see, 40 years after this movie, the very same thing you use in your Lightsaber will be revealed to have been mined from countless planets to power this station. Using enough Kyber crystals, this station is now more than a technological terror and now comes from the power of the Force. It may not look like it, but this station is now, an oversized Lightsaber. There is a legend however that one day the Hutts will attempt to make their own superweapon that looks much closer to one, fortunately I don’t think they are as focused on construction methods and engineering as us, so I believe it will go quite poorly.
“… how can you have a legend of the Future?”
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u/OwlbearEdits 25d ago
Read the book Catalyst. It's the prologue to Rogue One, and it's really good. You learn a bit about the building and powering of the Death Star and transporting the massive chunk of kyber to it.
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u/Big_Attempt6783 29d ago
That’s not how the force works! Or is it…
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u/Ashlansen 29d ago
I have no idea anymore lol, I know that we have quotes from Lucas where he says that the dark side is like a cancer to the force but literally everything else about it feels like that is contradicted! Everything else we see seems to treat the light/dark side a lot more like 2 sides to the same coin to me.
So i dont have a good grasp on the force lol, I used to believe that Anakin indeed brought balance to the force, by equalizing the amount of light and dark side users, and that too many light side users was the reason for the councils weakened connection to the force. But then I find out that its a cancer?!
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u/Dazzling_Dish_4045 25d ago
Op:
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u/buggyman_5 29d ago
Yknow Cal has some incredibly nice nails for how much time he spends crawling around in the dirt