So Rogue One made it sound like the Death Star was all Krennic and Erso‘s baby, under the watchful eye of Tarkin, but AOTC makes it seem like the Geonosians designed it*. So what’s the deal? Who gets the credit? What’s the timeline of events and people involved leading from initial idea to final construction of DS1?

*(potential spoilers for people not up on the new EU) I think they’re touched on in the cartoons too - are they the species the Empire wiped out to cover up the DS’s construction, a fact that persuades Kaluss that the Empire is evil? Was that story initially in The Clone Wars, or was that from a book or comic?

Catalyst has a lot more information on this subject, though they do leave it a little vague in places. The gist is that the Geonosians had some designs they were working on for Darth Sidious, but it's implied that he got the idea from somewhere else, and the actual superlaser was a product of Galen Erso's work on Kyber crystals and Krennic running a bunch of other labs using that research without Galen's knowledge. When Galen found out what his research was being used for, he took his family into hiding, which is where Rogue One picks up.

My impression, having seen the films and the cartoons, is that Geonosians designed the “frame”, and “Krennic & Erso Co.” the super laser.

Also, note how the clone army assault transports had “mini death-stars” as weaponry. The idea of concentrating smaller beams into a much more powerful one was already known, and used.

Even though I like Rogue One, I still say

Dark Forces > Rogue One

I don’t know if you want to spend the time audio booking or reading a book but Catalyst by James Luceno is the prequel book to rogue one and is excellent and I liked it more then the film(which I also love the film so that says a lot) but that explains everything with the Death Stars history. I do highly recommend

I think we're all overlooking the most obvious conclusion: that Krennic is a Geonosian!

1 hour ago, TheOz said:

I don’t know if you want to spend the time audio booking or reading a book but Catalyst by James Luceno is the prequel book to rogue one and is excellent and I liked it more then the film(which I also love the film so that says a lot) but that explains everything with the Death Stars history. I do highly recommend

Ok I run to buy it

3 hours ago, Jehan Menasis said:

My impression, having seen the films and the cartoons, is that Geonosians designed the “frame”, and “Krennic & Erso Co.” the super laser.

Also, note how the clone army assault transports had “mini death-stars” as weaponry. The idea of concentrating smaller beams into a much more powerful one was already known, and used.

The most interesting implication - that I've only ever seen implied in places, but seems legit and so is totally head-canon for me - is that since the Geonosians were Separatists this explains the second Death Star nicely.

IE., they developed the design for the structure of it, which is ultimately what got turned over to Palpatine by Dooku and got constructed (later even by Geonosian slave labor) as the Death Star 1...but since the Separatists HAD the plans, what is to say they didn't start their own construction on the blueprint, trying to one-up the Republic superweapon? Of course, they didn't have Krennic and Galen Erso to get the superlaser weapon or reactors of the scale needed working, so they obviously lagged behind the first Death Star...but once the Clone Wars ended by fiat and Palpatine got access to all the weapons and resources both sides were working on...

Well, I mean, why not finish the second one, too? And when it shortly became the ONLY Death Star, suddenly focusing more effort on it...

(Thus explaining the considerable apparent difference in construction timeline of the two Death Stars, which it would turn out, wasn't that different at all)

1 hour ago, Marinealver said:

Even though I like Rogue One, I still say

Dark Forces > Rogue One

Yup.

Jan and Kyle over Jyn and Cassian any day. ?

3 hours ago, TheOz said:

I don’t know if you want to spend the time audio booking or reading a book but Catalyst by James Luceno is the prequel book to rogue one and is excellent and I liked it more then the film(which I also love the film so that says a lot) but that explains everything with the Death Stars history. I do highly recommend

To offer a counter-opinion, I also love Rogue One but found Catalyst boring and struggled to finish it. I would recommend only if you really want to read a story just about the work and family life of a scientist in the Star Wars universe.

5 hours ago, JovianSunrise said:

Catalyst has a lot more information on this subject, though they do leave it a little vague in places. The gist is that the Geonosians had some designs they were working on for Darth Sidious, but it's implied that he got the idea from somewhere else, and the actual superlaser was a product of Galen Erso's work on Kyber crystals and Krennic running a bunch of other labs using that research without Galen's knowledge. When Galen found out what his research was being used for, he took his family into hiding, which is where Rogue One picks up.

Remember in this context that Yoda was aware of the existence of Kyber Super-Weapons and Sidious was gathering crystals for the death star already during the clone wars. So Sidious might be the one who was tipping off or at least encouraging Erso in the first place, because Sidious was aware about these weapons based on old Sith lore.

The AOTC connection is basically that Dooku is rallying the seperatists for resources and funding. The engineering (Erso) came later when the Emperor had control.

Life lesson: Don't be an engineer. Be a Client or a Contractor.

4 hours ago, TheOz said:

I don’t know if you want to spend the time audio booking or reading a book but Catalyst by James Luceno is the prequel book to rogue one and is excellent and I liked it more then the film(which I also love the film so that says a lot) but that explains everything with the Death Stars history. I do highly recommend

Is it a good book in its own right then, as a novel? I don’t fancy a novel length Encyclopedia entry on the subject.

53 minutes ago, mazz0 said:

Is it a good book in its own right then, as a novel? I don’t fancy a novel length Encyclopedia entry on the subject.

Yes, it is. It is mainly about Galen and Krennic as characters interacting, dedicates quite a lot of time to Galen's wife Lira as well and paints a beautiful picture of the Republic already having all the hallmarks of the Empire luring under its shiny surface.

The technical details are there, but they serve the story in that they tell how pacifist Galen came to first admire and then fear his own work, and how Krennic developed this need to manipulate Galen specifically to make the weapon work.

Back to the original question: Krennic learns that the Geonosians developed the blueprint/ "first draft" of the battlestation's frame, but after it fell into the Republic's hands, it soon became clear that a lot of adjustments had to be developed. Structural integrity as well as planning and building phases received overhauls, and then came the big hold up with the weapon's development and its fitting on the station.

59 minutes ago, mazz0 said:

Is it a good book in its own right then, as a novel? I don’t fancy a novel length Encyclopedia entry on the subject.

Catalyst is not only a good book to see the background of the first Death Star, it is also the best canon source for seeing the transition from Republic to Empire. And a great character study of Galen and Krennic. It isn't an action-adventure though, it's all about family and internal Republic/Imperial politics.

I've added to my head Canon the following scene:

When Krennic muscles out the Geonosians for control of the Death Star construction, the Geonosians leader appeals to Darth Vader. Vader informs him, "The Emperor has transferred directorship to an expert in Kyber crystals. Perhaps he will succeed where your Geonosians have failed. Try not to let it... bug you."

Last line delivered while Vader strides away.

This guy:

4 hours ago, Dasharr said:

To offer a counter-opinion, I also love Rogue One but found Catalyst boring and struggled to finish it. I would recommend only if you really want to read a story just about the work and family life of a scientist in the Star Wars universe.

To each their own opinion and I don’t discredit your experience but it’s not really about work and family life, it’s far more about krennic and Galen’s interaction and I find that dynamic far more interesting as well as giving so much more depth to those characters then the movie portrayed. Especially setting up krennic as a Little Finger like character and actually showing his social climbing and not just implying it.

I also have to say the audio book was amazingly done

2 hours ago, mazz0 said:

Is it a good book in its own right then, as a novel? I don’t fancy a novel length Encyclopedia entry on the subject.

Very good and I also recommend the audio book, as the performance and music really made it feel like listening to a Star Wars movie

on that note I say Star Wars audio books have been killing it, I drive for a living so it’s the best was for me to catch up on this stuff and all the new canon stuff has been excellent, like I said it’s like listening to a Star Wars movie

7 hours ago, xanderf said:

The most interesting implication - that I've only ever seen implied in places, but seems legit and so is totally head-canon for me - is that since the Geonosians were Separatists this explains the second Death Star nicely.

IE., they developed the design for the structure of it, which is ultimately what got turned over to Palpatine by Dooku and got constructed (later even by Geonosian slave labor) as the Death Star 1...but since the Separatists HAD the plans, what is to say they didn't start their own construction on the blueprint, trying to one-up the Republic superweapon? Of course, they didn't have Krennic and Galen Erso to get the superlaser weapon or reactors of the scale needed working, so they obviously lagged behind the first Death Star...but once the Clone Wars ended by fiat and Palpatine got access to all the weapons and resources both sides were working on...

Well, I mean, why not finish the second one, too? And when it shortly became the ONLY Death Star, suddenly focusing more effort on it...

(Thus explaining the considerable apparent difference in construction timeline of the two Death Stars, which it would turn out, wasn't that different at all)

Building the death star doesn't actually take long. Figuring it out does.

This is an empire spanning thousands of worlds. A bit of metal isn't too much of to move for them, even if it is (small) moon sized.

18 minutes ago, Commander Kaine said:

Building the death star doesn't actually take long. Figuring it out does.

This is an empire spanning thousands of worlds. A bit of metal isn't too much of to move for them, even if it is (small) moon sized.

We see them working on it at the close of RotS. Clearly, it took a while to build it up to where it’s live in Rogue One.

1 minute ago, ScummyRebel said:

We see them working on it at the close of RotS. Clearly, it took a while to build it up to where it’s live in Rogue One.

No?

Why is that clear? They made progress in rots as well... Then it takes nearly 20 years to build up the rest? And then 5 years later they build larger oner?

R1 explained that they had technical difficulties in designing the thing, not building it.

Just now, Commander Kaine said:

No?

Why is that clear? They made progress in rots as well... Then it takes nearly 20 years to build up the rest? And then 5 years later they build larger oner?

R1 explained that they had technical difficulties in designing the thing, not building it.

Are you suggesting the whole station was built minus the super laser for most of the time between RotS and R1?

To me, it would seem like when the project fell behind they would have paused construction as a whole in case the research turned up a dead end. Additionally, in order for Erso to establish the structural weakness with the exhaust port, he would need to have been working on a structure that wasn’t complete sans-weapon. Otherwise the change would have been more noticeable.

I mean, they had planet destroying technology during KoTR as well, so hard to say where it all comes from.

1 minute ago, ScummyRebel said:

Are you suggesting the whole station was built minus the super laser for most of the time between RotS and R1?

To me, it would seem like when the project fell behind they would have paused construction as a whole in case the research turned up a dead end. Additionally, in order for Erso to establish the structural weakness with the exhaust port, he would need to have been working on a structure that wasn’t complete sans-weapon. Otherwise the change would have been more noticeable.

No... I said it didn't take a lot of time. It doesn't matter if it was staggered or not.

Also, probably the super laser has other systems necessary as well, and these things couldn't be designed until the laser is at least somewhat finished.

So maybe it was paused. But I guess the empire could whip out a death star per year if they really wanted to.