Death Star Prototype

At least one prototype Death Star was constructed at the secret weapons research facility within the perilous Maw black hole cluster near the Kessel system. Consisting of little more than an exposed superstructural frame with reactors, superlaser and propulsion systems, the prototype Death Star was never intended for active service. Facing attack by a New Republic task force seven years after the Battle of Endor, the staff of the Maw facility took the prototype and fled into the outside galaxy, with disasterous results.

Death Star I

Constructed under conditions of strict secrecy, the first fully operational Death Star was commanded by Grand Moff Tarkin, the original sponsor and champion of the Death Star project. This battle station successfully destroyed the rebellious Core world of Alderaan but was itself obliterated by chain-reaction explosions ignited by a starfighter-launched proton torpedo just as the station prepared to target the main rebel base on Yavin IV.

The Tarkin

This minimalist superlaser weapon was constructed on Lord Vader's orders shortly after the Battle of Hoth. Assembled in inhabited space at Patriim, this project was not quite as secure and secret as the fully-fledged Death Star II later built at Endor. The Tarkin dispensed with most of a Death Star's bulk, but had enhanced propulsion and defensive shields.

Death Star II

Constructed in secrecy in orbit around the remote forest moon of Endor, this battle station, commanded by Moff Jerjerrod, was only a piece in Emperor Palpatine's grand deception and manipulation of the Rebel Alliance. The rebel fleet was trapped hopelessly between the Death Star's security deflector shield and a star destroyer fleet, until the assistence of Endor's natives enabled a rebel commando team to lower the shields. A concentrated rebel starfighter attack on the main reactor subsequently destroyed the vulnerable battle station while it rotated with the intention of retributively destroying the sanctuary moon.

Coruscant Death Stars

Incomplete twin Death Stars were under construction in orbit around Imperial Centre at approximately the time of the Battle of Endor. Unfortuantely, it seems as if neither was ever completed far enough to be useful. It is unknown whether the Rebel Alliance was aware of the existence of these nascent battle stations when the attack on the Endor facility was planned. The rebels probably would not have had the audacity to assault the heavily fortifed Coruscant shipyards, even if they knew about these ominous constructions. As bait, these stations would be useless to the Emperor, and he would find little value in allowing the existence of these stations to be leaked to rebel spies, as he did for the Endor project. In any case they seem to have been abandoned and dismantled within months of the Emperor's fall.

Darksaber

This vessel was a Death Star stripped down to its fundamentals: the main reactor and superlaser shaft. Its construction was commissioned eight years after the Battle of Endor by Durga the Hutt, who retained the services of the chief designer of the original Death Star, engineering genius Bevel Lemelisk. Lemelisk had serious doubts about the quality of workmanship exhibited by the Hutt's construction crew. He escaped scant seconds before the destruction of his latest brain-child, and was taken into the custody of the New Republic.