The Death Star was a battle station the size of a small moon. It had a formidable array of turbolasers and tractor beam projectors, giving it the firepower of greater than half the Imperial starfleet. Within its cavernous interior were legions of Imperial troops and fightercraft, as well as all manner of detention blocks and interrogation cells. The Death Star was spherical, and dark gray in color. Located on the Death Star’s northern hemisphere was a concave disk housing the station’s main laser weapon.

The technical schematics for the Death Star were developed by the cutting edge technologists of the Confederacy of Independent Systems during the Clone Wars. With the defeat of the Separatists and the Republic’s transformation into Empire, the Death Star project fell under the command of Grand Moff Tarkin, one the Empire’s preeminent governors. The Death Star was developed in secret, through many difficulties over a span of almost 20 years. Rebel Alliance spies were nonetheless able to learn of the weapon’s existence, and stole vital technical schematics from guarded Imperial vaults. These desperate spies transmitted this data to Rebel leader Princess Leia Organa, who stored the plans in R2-D2’s memory systems.