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Basic shit:

1. It's so big. How does the crew cross the huge distances if necessary? Or is it designed so that the crew members never need to leave a certain area?

2. Does it have a self-destruct mechanism? If so, who has authorization? BTW- I doubt it does, but I wanted my suspicions confirmed.

3. In terms of internal defense, what do they have besides stormtroopers?

I don't read the EU; getting a specific bit of info like these is surprisingly difficult when you actually need it. Thanks in advance.

Bug-Eyed Earl wrote:Basic shit:

1. It's so big. How does the crew cross the huge distances if necessary? Or is it designed so that the crew members never need to leave a certain area?

Really fast elevators/shuttle trains

2. Does it have a self-destruct mechanism? If so, who has authorization? BTW- I doubt it does, but I wanted my suspicions confirmed.

No idea, though that would be Palpys MO to have an ability ot trigger its destruction if someone tried to use it against him

3. In terms of internal defense, what do they have besides stormtroopers?

Blast doors and the ability to remove walkways, lots of naval troopers, basic internal defenses (ISDs could flood sections of themselves with gas). But I'd imagne the fact that its external defenses were such that you only came on board if the Imperials wanted you to is the big thing.

I don't read the EU; getting a specific bit of info like these is surprisingly difficult when you actually need it. Thanks in advance.

Might be more in the Death Star Technical Journal, which I don't have.

1. No idea, Ender's probably right.
2. If it does, Palpy is almost certainly the only one who can trigger the thing.
3. All the stuff Ender said, plus laser turrents in the walls in certain areas. These shoot at Luke, Han, and Chewie in the cell block in ANH when they go to rescue Leia.

Really? I always wondered what the hell they were shooting at in there.

Bug-Eyed Earl wrote:1. It's so big. How does the crew cross the huge distances if necessary? Or is it designed so that the crew members never need to leave a certain area?

It's possible that large parts of it might be used for power generation. What you'd need so many people for on a station like that is beyond me.

Vympel wrote:Really? I always wondered what the hell they were shooting at in there.

Same with me. However, if they were laser turrets, would that mean the DS's internal defences weren't up to the job? I'm just saying this because there were quite a few of them and neither Han, Luke or Chewie got hit. Is it possible they were a mix of devices? Some being surveillance cameras, some being autoturrets, some being... uh... can't think of anything else. Or were they all wall-mounted laser-turrets?

perhaps the stormtrooper suits they were wearing had some kind of IFF device in them, and they didn't want the turrets roasting chewie?

Stofsk wrote:

Vympel wrote:Really? I always wondered what the hell they were shooting at in there.

Same with me. However, if they were laser turrets, would that mean the DS's internal defences weren't up to the job? I'm just saying this because there were quite a few of them and neither Han, Luke or Chewie got hit. Is it possible they were a mix of devices? Some being surveillance cameras, some being autoturrets, some being... uh... can't think of anything else. Or were they all wall-mounted laser-turrets?

There was a mixture of turrets as well as cams(cams were 6-8 block black glass panels, arranged in a two by three,four arrangement.)

I can't really recall, but I remember there were at least 2 laser turrets. We didn't see any of it fire, and its probable that the laser turrets never fired off a single shot because it wasn't turned on

I think they also use the small AT-PT for defense.
That small one-man walker would be a deadly, moving barricade, which can close an entire corridor.

Gandalf wrote:

Bug-Eyed Earl wrote:1. It's so big. How does the crew cross the huge distances if necessary? Or is it designed so that the crew members never need to leave a certain area?

It's possible that large parts of it might be used for power generation. What you'd need so many people for on a station like that is beyond me.

The power generator is big, but not THAT big. The rest of the Death Star is mostly used for something. Look at this picture, to see it:



And here for a more detailled picture:

So how much is inhabited?

Also, a station of that size must generate some sort of gravity field, is this ever addressed?

Gandalf wrote:So how much is inhabited?

Also, a station of that size must generate some sort of gravity field, is this ever addressed?

In the pictures, you should hae no problem, seeing the inhabited areas. And as you see, thats roughly 2/3 of the whole Death Star.

Concerning the gravity fiel, Saxton has wrote something concerning this point Here.

Does anyone know what that little black thing that the stormtroopers would follow around was for?

Drooling Iguana wrote:Does anyone know what that little black thing that the stormtroopers would follow around was for?

The mouse droid?

It's a courier droid. It also does minor maintenance and guides the troops through the Death Star.

Is the Star Destroyer in that pic to scale?

No, it's in the distance.

Vympel wrote:Really? I always wondered what the hell they were shooting at in there.

To me they looked like security cameras.

They did look a lot like cameras, but I'm reasonably sure I saw at least some of them shooting at Luke, Han, and Chewie. Perhaps they missed because they were designed to shoot people busting out of the cell block, not busting in. Besides, I find it rather unlikely that they're cameras, since the DS's security people seemed rather clueless as to what (if anything) was going on down there. I still remember Han talking into that little intercom, repeatedly telling the guy on the other end that everything was fine and then blasting it when the guy asked for his number. Granted, it's unlikely that the guy talking to Han was watching the camera readouts (if there were any) for that one room, but it does make sense to have laser turrents in areas like the cell block.

Well it also made sense that they blow up all their cameras if they wanted to keep their cover, somewhat. Maybe security guards don't have their eyes permanently glued to every single monitor in their room

I've watched the scene several times and I'm pretty sure not a single shot came from any of those devices.

According to the Essential Guide to Weapons and Tech. there was both Security Scanners and Automated Laser Traps. The reason the ALT's didn't fire may be because according to the EGTWAT the ALT's need to be activated by an alarm:

"The complete class VI laser projector unit consists of a control computer, a sensor suite, and a small blaster cannon. When responding to an alarm, security guards may control and fire the blaster manually or activate the unit's onboard combat computer, which can track up to two dozen targets simultaneously"

Bug-Eyed Earl wrote:Basic shit:

1. It's so big. How does the crew cross the huge distances if necessary? Or is it designed so that the crew members never need to leave a certain area?

On an aircraft carrier a man has a station and he doesn't leave that station for more than sleep and food. Many of the vets I've talked to on the carrier I work on have never even seen most of their ship.

If they have guide droids leading troops around, then they are moving a fair bit around the station.

Slartibartfast wrote:Well it also made sense that they blow up all their cameras if they wanted to keep their cover, somewhat. Maybe security guards don't have their eyes permanently glued to every single monitor in their room

I've watched the scene several times and I'm pretty sure not a single shot came from any of those devices.

As I remember it, in the radio drama they are all cameras.

Just because everything that the radio drama saw shot were cameras do not mean there were not other "off screen" shootings of the automated blaster traps--this is exactly why things in novelisations/radio dramas/screenplays/comic depictions are still true even if they're not directly shown in the movie itself.

2000AD wrote:According to the Essential Guide to Weapons and Tech. there was both Security Scanners and Automated Laser Traps. The reason the ALT's didn't fire may be because according to the EGTWAT the ALT's need to be activated by an alarm:

"The complete class VI laser projector unit consists of a control computer, a sensor suite, and a small blaster cannon. When responding to an alarm, security guards may control and fire the blaster manually or activate the unit's onboard combat computer, which can track up to two dozen targets simultaneously"

Well, yeah, there were two different kind of devices, and one of them really looked like a camera... the other was just weird, couldn't possibly be a camera, so I suppose that was the Laser.