Obviously from the movies we know a lot about the Death Star.

But when the Falcon approaches it no one is aware that it's a space station. So on one hand, I'd think the Empire kept it rather quiet.

On the flip side, they blew up an entire planet so I assume the secret is kinda out.

Clearly the Alliance would know about a giant space station that is threatening their very existence.

But what about people not involved in the Galactic Civil War? Would someone on Tatooine know about the Death Star? Do they know that the Empire destroyed Alderaan (Wookiepedia seems to say yes). And then what do people know about its destruction? Do they know it was destroyed? Do they know it was a single ship or do they think it was a massive Rebel armada? (Emkay's comments in X-Wing Alliance notwithstanding.)

Just want to make sure I reference the Death Star correctly in my campaign.

Wasn't the party line that the space station was a mining tool stolen by the Alliance and used to destroy Alderaan for Reasons? (Yeah Imperial propaganda dropped that ball pretty hard with that implausibility if that was the case).

That doesn't mesh well with Tarkin's assertion that fear of the Death Star (and the implication that the galaxy would know that it was an Imperial battle station) would keep the systems in line and afraid to revolt against the New Order.

It surprised me that the Falcon wouldn't know the details of the Alderaan system - planets, moons, their position (which the navicomp would need to calculate to not jump inside of them?) I mean, it's a major system, the EU expanded on it, but the notion that the Death Star could have been confused for a random moon doesn't make much sense unless where exactly a ship exits hyper is less precise than was depicted in other media, including the PT and scenes in later OT movies.

At our EotE table, one of the (Empire-leaning) PC's makes a point of regularly reminding us that the Rebels are the one's who purportedly blew up Alderaan. So says the Great Imperial Propaganda Machine^TM. (YMMV)

I still don't know how/why that would make sense, unless it's to play up fear that the Rebels would attack the core to overthrow the government?

Yeah I suppose Alderaan being a hotbed of Rebel sympathizers would not be widely-known, just that a major planet in galactic politics was suddenly destroyed.

In our campaign, the Empire let it be known that they were the ones responsible for blowing up Alderaan.

The destruction of the Death Star is still under investigation, but everything leads to a malfunctioning hypermatter re-reactor igniter whatchamajig. So say the powers that be. The rebels are trying to get the word out that they (the Empire) are responsible, but nobody is taking them seriously at the moment.

In a buddies campaign, (don't quote me on this) the Empire is spinning the destruction of Alderaan in a different way. They are saying it was caused by the rebels mining to close to the core. The general population of the galaxy is totally unaware that the Death Star ever existed.

It actually was fairly well known if not officially stated that Alderaan supported the rebellion, at least within the Imperial military.

In one of the X-Wing novels its stated that in the aftermath of Alderaan's destruction Tycho Celchu believed that the rebels would be willing to destroy a planet to achieve their goals but also knew it wouldn't be Alderaan because they drew support from there

It surprised me that the Falcon wouldn't know the details of the Alderaan system - planets, moons, their position (which the navicomp would need to calculate to not jump inside of them?) I mean, it's a major system, the EU expanded on it, but the notion that the Death Star could have been confused for a random moon doesn't make much sense unless where exactly a ship exits hyper is less precise than was depicted in other media, including the PT and scenes in later OT movies.

Well remember it was Luke who said moon and he wasn't a galaxy traveler, and Han and chewie were focused on chasing the TIE and probably not really thinking about it. Simple explanation, but also plenty likely.

In one piece of propaganda I saw said that it was only named Death Star after it was destroyed "in honor of those brave souls who lost their lives in the line of duty".

It surprised me that the Falcon wouldn't know the details of the Alderaan system - planets, moons, their position (which the navicomp would need to calculate to not jump inside of them?) I mean, it's a major system, the EU expanded on it, but the notion that the Death Star could have been confused for a random moon doesn't make much sense unless where exactly a ship exits hyper is less precise than was depicted in other media, including the PT and scenes in later OT movies.

Well remember it was Luke who said moon and he wasn't a galaxy traveler, and Han and chewie were focused on chasing the TIE and probably not really thinking about it. Simple explanation, but also plenty likely.

Great point. And Obi-Wan, who I imagine had been to Alderaan before, was still quite mentally overwhelmed by the backlash in the Force.

Interestingly, the Wookiepedia page on Tarkin has the most info on what the Empire said after the BoY: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Wilhuff_Tarkin#Legacy

Imperial sources alleged that Alderaan had been accidentally destroyed by a superweapon of its own construction, while ... Satellite recordings of Alderaan's destruction, however, were smuggled out of the system by Rebel agents, and underground news sources began broadcasting the truth. The Empire quickly changed its story, announcing that the Death Star had destroyed Alderaan after finding evidence that the planet was developing a Rebel biowarfare initiative.

That doesn't mesh well with Tarkin's assertion that fear of the Death Star (and the implication that the galaxy would know that it was an Imperial battle station) would keep the systems in line and afraid to revolt against the New Order.

Thank you, I meant to bring that up in my first post.

Tycho was actually on a Holo call home when Alderaan was destroyed sadly enough. Now what does the general public know that boiler plate line above. However, you have to remember Black Sun and their leader was active in the Empire at the time and they got the inside track for what happened. They have info brokers and are savvy enough to know that the truth gets you well paid in some areas so there was profit to be had. My guess is that the Hutts bought it from them and the Zann Consortium from them (With Mr. Zann buying a copy of the pirate footage of both Alderaan destruction and Death Star). So my guess is most of the underworld would know about it. Shortly after the Death Star destruction any rebels caught were sent to Kessel so smugglers and prisoners would of found out about it. Whether anybody believed it or even paid attention is another matter all together.

Now why Han had a bit of confusion is they came out of hyperspace into the middle of a 'meteor storm/shower' and he had no idea why. So he was busy making sure they were where they were supposed to be. Now the navicomputer and scanners are like a fingerprint scanner/sonar device. It took a shot of the surrounding stars and pinged the nearest functional hyperspace beacon to confirm they were in the right spot. That confirmed Han began trying to figure out what was going on when the TIE buzzed him. He became distracted and gave chase.

The Radio Drama goes into this a bit. Leia was talking to the Imperial officer in charge of the building of the Death Star (about an arranged marriage). He was talking about this new weapon that would change the fate of the galaxy when she slipped up and described it as a "Death Star" which was a secret imperial code name. This outed her as a rebel and she had to kill the imperial and flee Alderaan. She was only in hyperspace a short while before she was captured at the beginning of Ep IV. So the existence of the Death Star was a secret across the whole galaxy right up until it destroyed Alderaan (if you believe the radio drama is canon which isn't a common assumption).

Han would never have heard about it.

There is no such thing as correct in Star Wars. As you can see from this thread, there are a variety of explanations for everything.

All the "official spin" on the Death Star/Alderaan stuff I recall was basically the whole thing was VERY poorly concealed. They did try to blame Alderaan's destruction on the Alliance, but pretty much nobody who wasn't already a die-hard brainwashed pro-Imperial bought it. Probably didn't help they came out with multiple stories about it; I imagine the planned propaganda was going to be supporting the Rule of Fear stuff (i.e. "Yeah, we vaporized that planet of disloyalists, you complain and you're next!") and they were caught very short by the Death Star itself going boom and wound up scrambling around very ineffectually. Add in the Rebel Alliance doing a very good job getting the actual story out (I seem to recall Luke did a LOT of touring around between Ep IV and V as part of that, with Leia assisting with the actual political stuff naturally) and the whole thing was a massive propaganda blow to the Empire. I seem to recall the Alliance started really taking off afterwards as a result to boot. So it's entirely likely that while the details of the whole business were hidden, most everybody knows the basic truth of "Empire blew up Alderaan with a superweapon, Rebels blew up the superweapon, Empire is trying to lie about it and failing pathetically" even in the Core.

It's round and was bad.

Am I the only one who thinks it would be hilarious is if the Imperial story about the Alliance destroying Alderaan backfired and some worlds that believed it started contributing money and resources to the rebellion so it wouldn't destroy them?

Am I the only one who thinks it would be hilarious is if the Imperial story about the Alliance destroying Alderaan backfired and some worlds that believed it started contributing money and resources to the rebellion so it wouldn't destroy them?

That's like saying you donated money to Osama Bin Laden after 911. Then again, there's plenty of pushover races who would do such a bribe, like the Neimodians.

I still don't know how/why that would make sense, unless it's to play up fear that the Rebels would attack the core to overthrow the government?

Yeah I suppose Alderaan being a hotbed of Rebel sympathizers would not be widely-known, just that a major planet in galactic politics was suddenly destroyed.

Well it's indisputable that the Death Star is supposed to be known about as Tarkin wants fear of it to keep planets in line. I always took that to mean that it was known the Empire blew up Alderaan. But I suppose it is possible that they were masquerading it as a terrorist threat to push people toward the Empire. Same way the US and UK governments have shamelessly taken advantage of the threat of terrorism to swing votes and pass invasive laws. So a kind of "Rebels are blowing up planets! You can't let such people beat us, they hate our freedoms! Support your Empire!" deal.

I think people knowing the Empire is armed with the ability to destroy planets works better personally, however.

My understanding was that it was constructed in secret. When we see it in ANH it's on its proving flight (if that's the right term?). It only gets put into use after all the systems check out and they're ready to fire the big gun. That they know it works tells the Empire that they're ready to dissolve the senate ('cause anyone who kicks a fuss can now be blown to rubble).

That it got blowed up by some farm boy soon after is a PR disaster*. It proved that even with a weapon like that, the Empire could be beaten.

* A conscious pun, for once (but an obscure one). Because if puns're gonna fall out of my mouth anyway, I may as well embrace it.

Well remember gents, the EUs validity is up in the air these days. So the whole Skyhook/Black Sun/ZannCon elements can be ignored until mentioned in a new show or (maybe) listed on a new official timeline.

The radio drama, being based on earlier scripts is a little safer, but not hugely so.

So all we know for sure was the galaxy at large probably didn't know about it, Alderaan was destroyed as a demonstration of the Dstar to the galaxy at large (Dantooine was too remote) and it started as a separatist program.

You can make some logical deductions from that, but not much more.

The radio drama, being based on earlier scripts is a little safer, but not hugely so.

I have a feeling that at some point the writers of Star Wars Rebels will run out of ideas and stick the Death Star into that show somehow.

Built in secret by wookiee slaves in orbit around Despayre from materials mined from Raxus prime as detailed in the novels Force Unleashed and Death Star. Now no longer canon, apparently

"What do People Know Exactly about the DEATH STAR??"

IT'S BIG...IT'S UGLY...LETS KILL IT!!