Haynes Star Wars: Death Star Owner's Technical Manual

[Mange]

Did anyone here get the Star Wars: Death Star Owner's Technical Manual by Ryder Windham, Chris Reiff and Chris Trevas that was released last November and if so, what are your thoughts on it? I liked the Star Wars: The Millennium Falcon Owner's Workshop Manual, but I've held off getting the Death Star manual as I was disappointed that the sizes have been re-retconned (or, as Leland Chee put it on Twitter, "unretconned") to the earlier 120 km and 160 km respectively. Apart from that, is it worth getting?

[Vance]

I want to see the rigourous scaling and research the team claim to have performed, and compare it to Curtis's own and publicly available research. That is when his site is actually working of-course. If the 160Km and 900Km figures are established from the films themselves, are the 120 and 160 "retcons" not overruled?

[Mange]

I want to see the rigourous scaling and research the team claim to have performed, and compare it to Curtis's own and publicly available research.

Indeed. Heck, there was even a Photoreceptor or Galactic Gallery picture (I don't remember which and I haven't managed to find it though I know I saved it, but I have of course changed computer a few times since then) on Hyperspace when that was active that showed Ralph McQuarrie's production drawing of the upscaled Death Star (as it had been much smaller in the early pre-production artwork) which explicitly said that it was 100 miles in diameter.

That is when his site is actually working of-course. If the 160Km and 900Km figures are established from the films themselves, are the 120 and 160 "retcons" not overruled?

Oh, but didn't you know? Endor is 4,900 km in diameter?

[Mange]

Sorry for the double-post, but I can no longer edit my post... Anyway, I found the picture (and it was a Galactic Gallery-picture) and it showed the Death Star as being 92 miles, or 148 km, in diameter with the equatorial trench being exactly one mile in height.

[Vance]

In this image I matched the Death Star's curvature in the Executor crash scene to a full view of the Death Star.

[Mange]

Interesting, I haven't seen that tried before, but I can't quite make out the numbers. What were your results?

Oh, and the drawing I referred to earlier was of course from the production of the original Star Wars movie (DS1).

[Vance]

The second Death Star is over fifty times wider than the Executors length in the picture...

Curtis extrapolated that a planet must be at least 8000 kilometres wide to have a Earth like gravity and breathable atmosphere, and that a 10,400 kilometre diameter would be more likely. He also stated that the world is 11.5 times the diameter of the DS, again supporting the ~900 figure. Even if we went the impossibly small size given in the EU then the DS would still be hundreds of kilometres across.

[Jedi Commisar]

Did anyone here get the Star Wars: Death Star Owner's Technical Manual Apart from that, is it worth getting?

To answere the first question yes I have and two the second one for it's quite a good read

[biostem]

Do they ever establish whether the Death Star is simply setup as top to bottom "decks", or if it is setup in some sort of "layers" format, from the outermost layer in? Also, since it can obviously travel around at sub-light speeds, (as well as via hyperspace), do they show where its reaction drives are?

[Eternal_Freedom]

If the Hayne's manual doesn't show that, the Original Trilogy Incredible Cross Sections book does. There is a layer of surface decks oriented with down being the central reactor, but once you're further inside it switches to stacks of decks with down being the station's south pole. As for where the reaction drives are, I think they were around the equatorial trench.

[Mange]

I ended up ordering it in spite of...

[Mange]

If the Hayne's manual doesn't show that, the Original Trilogy Incredible Cross Sections book does. There is a layer of surface decks oriented with down being the central reactor, but once you're further inside it switches to stacks of decks with down being the station's south pole. As for where the reaction drives are, I think they were around the equatorial trench.

I received Hayne's manual today and the cutaways etc. are based on the ones in ICS and it's specified that the decks are arranged in that fashion.

I really liked the Hayne's manual on the Falcon (also with text by Ryder Windham) and while I've mostly glanced through the DS manual, there's much to like about this book as well. However, both books are lacking when it comes to quantify for example shield strength (and this book doesn't mention planetary shields, but only that Palpatine had Coruscant blanketed by multiple shield generators withstanding attacks by proton torpedoes), superlaser power (the only reference is to the Dodonna quote, but though the book references the Death Star-novel, there's no reference to the shifting to hyperspace nonsense) etc.

The old sizes are indeed back. While this book is non-canon with the rest of the old EU, Chee stated on Twitter in November 2013 that "We regard the Death Star Owner's Technical Manual as authoritative."

[Mange]

Sorry for the triple-post but I can't edit my earlier post.

I was wrong. There's a section on planetary shield generators in the DSII chapter (specifically the one on the Endor moon), but it's... weird. It says that a planetary shield is "...more powerful [than a standard deflector shield]" and "[...] nullifies both physical and energy attacks." It's mentioned that the only weapon capable of penetrating a planetary shield is a superlaser. The shield on the Endor moon is mentioned as enveloping DSII but not the moon itself.

The figures for the crew and troop complement are ridiculously low. The DSI is stated as having a crew of 342,953 and 843,342 "passengers". The DSII crew complement is stated as 485,560 with 1.3 million troops (along with 152,275 gunners and 537,862 pilots, infantry etc.).

As for the size thing... It seems that they've taken the line "twice the size" from ROTJ novelization and interpreted it as being twice the volume as the book specifically points to that.