Look! Ali G Wrote Me!

[Chardok]

Punctuation, anyone? No? Okay, then.

[Dillon]

and the death star dose not have 44 billon cew

lol, I'm picturing a Borg Cube with the Drones packed in like Sardines.

[consequences]

Amusingly enough, a Death Star with a proper crew for its size would easily have 44 billion+ people in it.

[jawbertsc]

Well according to the EU its crew was 1 million. I think that 44 billion is a bit too much. A modern aircraft carrier has about 5k and SW has a far better tech level i think automation woulld keep the population down. Besides they developed the death star in secrecy. 1 million people keeping a secret would be far easier than 44 billion.

[consequences]

Well according to the EU its crew was 1 million. I think that 44 billion is a bit too much. A modern aircraft carrier has about 5k and SW has a far better tech level i think automation woulld keep the population down. Besides they developed the death star in secrecy. 1 million people keeping a secret would be far easier than 44 billion.

Volume. You can't get something with the volume of millions of Star destroyers and claim it needs no more people than a bare fifty ISDs. The EU is wrong about many things with regards to the Death Stars, size and guns among them, so I fail to see why we should take it as gospel in regards to crew numbers.

Please read the Star Wars Technical Commentaries section on the Death Star, as Saxton makes his case better than I can.

[Praxis]

Well according to the EU its crew was 1 million. I think that 44 billion is a bit too much. A modern aircraft carrier has about 5k and SW has a far better tech level i think automation woulld keep the population down. Besides they developed the death star in secrecy. 1 million people keeping a secret would be far easier than 44 billion.

Volume. You can't get something with the volume of millions of Star destroyers and claim it needs no more people than a bare fifty ISDs. The EU is wrong about many things with regards to the Death Stars, size and guns among them, so I fail to see why we should take it as gospel in regards to crew numbers.

Please read the Star Wars Technical Commentaries section on the Death Star, as Saxton makes his case better than I can.

In reality, it does make sense.

400,000 gunners, one for each weapon.
200,000 technitions to keep everything running right when repairs are needed.
Maybe one or two hundred people for the bridge crew, probably even less, but you never know.
A pilot for every TIE fighter, and however many Stormies you need.
50,000 to 100,000 coordinators to keep everything organized...
A few thousand tractor beam operators.

One million is a tad low considering the amount of troops aboard (we saw more Stormies than anything else), but two or three million wouldn't be undercrewed.

[consequences]

In reality, it does make sense.

400,000 gunners, one for each weapon.
200,000 technitions to keep everything running right when repairs are needed.
Maybe one or two hundred people for the bridge crew, probably even less, but you never know.
A pilot for every TIE fighter, and however many Stormies you need.
50,000 to 100,000 coordinators to keep everything organized...
A few thousand tractor beam operators.

One million is a tad low considering the amount of troops aboard (we saw more Stormies than anything else), but two or three million wouldn't be undercrewed.

Except that we see multiple gunners for some weapons, and the density of turbolaser towers on the DS surface suggests the potential of millions of emplacements total IIRC. You should also multiply those figures by at least three to provide for multiple crew shifts, and the inevitable ten thousand plus Sick Call personnel each day.

Other issues with your figure include a lack of redundancy in case of combat damage, ignoring the anti-droid and computer control bias that permeates the Imperial Navy. Supply personnel in charge of the gargantuan shipments that have to arrive, inspection crews to make sure that the Rebels aren't smuggling in a 200 meter Baradium bomb in the guise of a cargo container, The cooks, clerks, and Sergeant-Major's band, PX and Commisary personnel, medical crew, built-in USO show, etcetera, etcetera. The scene in Spaceballs with the three-ring circus isn't actually that far-fetched.

[Enforcer Talen]

yeah. a military base is never just an armoury - theres 10,000 support crew, too.

[jawbertsc]

Volume. You can't get something with the volume of millions of Star destroyers and claim it needs no more people than a bare fifty ISDs. The EU is wrong about many things with regards to the Death Stars, size and guns among them, so I fail to see why we should take it as gospel in regards to crew numbers.

Please read the Star Wars Technical Commentaries section on the Death Star, as Saxton makes his case better than I can.

Where did you get that figure a million Star Destroyers?
according to srtarwars.com the diameter of the Death Star is 160 Kilometers thats big but i doubt its that big to hold a million 1600 meter ISD's but you do the math.

I claimed nothing I only reported whay I read from a Lucas authorized source. My argument was the Death Star did not have 44 billion onboard.

[Vympel]

Where did you get that figure a million Star Destroyers?
according to srtarwars.com the diameter of the Death Star is 160 Kilometers thats big but i doubt its that big to hold a million 1600 meter ISD's but you do the math.

I think you need to do the math. The Death Star is not 160km *long* like an ISD is 1600m long, it is 160km in diameter. Little thing called volume- see, because it's a SPHERE. Jesus Christ, do you need this sort of thing explained to you?

I claimed nothing I only reported whay I read from a Lucas authorized source. My argument was the Death Star did not have 44 billion onboard.

A few million crew would mean the station is so sparsely populated as to be unworkable as a spacecraft. End of story.

[Ender]

Well according to the EU its crew was 1 million. I think that 44 billion is a bit too much. A modern aircraft carrier has about 5k and SW has a far better tech level i think automation woulld keep the population down. Besides they developed the death star in secrecy. 1 million people keeping a secret would be far easier than 44 billion.

A modern aircraft carrier has about 6000 actually. HST with CVW3 is just shy of it, RR with its airwing is over it. A 1,000,000 man crew is unworkable, it ends up with a population density less then wyoming trying to keep the place together.

And no, automation does not drastically cut crews. In fact it tends to increase them over the long term. When ships went from sails to coal burning the crew dropped temporarily, but then they started adding more guns and building more massive ships. When they went from coal to oil they dropped the crew a bit and then tacked on radar and missiles, and guns and the crew shot up. They went nuclear and the crews skyrocketed. When people talk about automation reducing crews they are thinking about freighters and cruise ships, where that works out. For them smaller critical spaces and smaller crews are an advantage because it lets them have more carrying space and pay less people. In warships having on part smaller and needing fewer people for it means you then add on more other systems to increase survivability. Those require more people. With warships, there is definately a bottom line (based off the poor maintenance of the russian fleet during the cold war when it was relatively well provisioned it appears to be 30 tons per person is when efficiency drops). Now droids could do a lot in SW, but there are still numerous jobs droids can't do, so the several billion crew is required.

As for hiding people... the galactic populations is ~100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 people (1*10^26, 1 quadrillion). Coruscant itself is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 people (1*10^18, 1 trillion).

You really think they can't hide a few billion?

[Ender]

Well according to the EU its crew was 1 million. I think that 44 billion is a bit too much. A modern aircraft carrier has about 5k and SW has a far better tech level i think automation woulld keep the population down. Besides they developed the death star in secrecy. 1 million people keeping a secret would be far easier than 44 billion.

Volume. You can't get something with the volume of millions of Star destroyers and claim it needs no more people than a bare fifty ISDs. The EU is wrong about many things with regards to the Death Stars, size and guns among them, so I fail to see why we should take it as gospel in regards to crew numbers.

Please read the Star Wars Technical Commentaries section on the Death Star, as Saxton makes his case better than I can.

In reality, it does make sense.

400,000 gunners, one for each weapon.
200,000 technitions to keep everything running right when repairs are needed.
Maybe one or two hundred people for the bridge crew, probably even less, but you never know.
A pilot for every TIE fighter, and however many Stormies you need.
50,000 to 100,000 coordinators to keep everything organized...
A few thousand tractor beam operators.

One million is a tad low considering the amount of troops aboard (we saw more Stormies than anything else), but two or three million wouldn't be undercrewed.

And of course these people are standing watch 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, right?

And the DS will need way more techs then that (2 nuclear reactors require a department of >400 people) and the gunners number is way too low.