Page 125 - Star Wars Insider (Special Edition 2020)

The planet-shattering superlaser is fitted onto the Death Star.
The rebels plan their action.
Dodd Rancit was the right person for the
job. He served under Republic Intelligence
during the Clone Wars and worked with
Captain Wilhuff Tarkin at the time. When
the war ended, Rancit moved to the Galactic
Empire and his first assignment was on
Sentinel Base, an outpost supporting
construction of the Death Star. He didn’t
last. He was removed from the project and
appointed as the head of the freshly created
Navel Intelligence Agency.
The responsibility for overseeing the
Death Star shifted over to Moff Tarkin.
Ever the overachiever, Tarkin had suggested
the symbol of power to Palpatine during the
Clone Wars. Tarkin faced challenges in his
post at Sentinel Base—sabotage, shipment
delays, and supply shortages all led to
missed deadlines—but he proved his merit.
He navigated the problems and kept creation
of the battle station more or less on track
for three years. Palpatine rewarded Tarkin,
promoting him to Grand Moff.
Then there was Orson Krennic, the
brutal and ambitious director of Advanced
Weapons Research for the Empire.
His obsession with the completion
of the Death Star drove him to enlist
his old friend, the scientist Galen Erso,
whose brilliant mind was an important
cog in the battle station’s constuction.
LOCATION,
LOCATION, LOCATION
Where do you stage the construction
site of the most giantic weapon in the
galaxy? Darth Sidious chose the space
above Geonosis because access to the
planet was restricted to all but a few.
It ensured no passersby would wander
in and discover the project.
The project unfolded in secrecy for
years above the planet. The Empire used
beings much like they used supplies.
The novel Star Wars: Aftermath, by Chuck
Wendig, revealed Wookiee slave laborers
were among the aliens forced to operate
equipment utilized in the enterprise.
While the space station came together in
Geonosis’ orbit, the Empire had to staff
off-world manufacturing facilities to
create the multitude of parts and pieces
needed to complete the weapon. They
used a system of stations and depots to
make the supply line difficult to trace.
To maintain secrecy from the prying
eyes of the Senate and such tireless
rebels as Saw Gerrera, the Death Star was
moved from Geonosis to Scarif in the years
before A New Hope. When the crew of the
Ghost travels to Geonosis in the episode
“the Honorable Ones” from Star Wars
Rebels Season Two, they find remnants of
construction modules. The Imperials and
the Death Star were gone, and furthermore,
no life remained on Geonosis. The Darth
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