For fans of Star Wars of all ages, as in my case, we first learn of the Death Star in the opening minutes with the introductory text crawl of Star Wars – A New Hope; this becomes Episode IV in the eventual chronology of the film franchise, but the first film to be released in 1977. We don’t yet know what it looks like or how big and powerful it is, but the Death Star becomes a major plot point throughout the first film. Rebels have acquired the plans to the Death Star through great sacrifice and Princess Leia is determined to get those plans to the leadership of the rebel alliance to determine a potential vulnerability in an effort to destroy it. Princess Leia’s ship, a Rebel blockade runner, the Tantive IV, has been captured by an Empire Star Destroyer, drawn into a massive docking bay and storm troopers have forcibly entered the spacecraft. After a vicious laser battle between the Stormtroopers and Leia’s defensive guards, Darth Vader appears through the smoke.
Princess Leia has loaded the plans to the Death Star and a holographic message into R2D2, a droid, who must deliver them to Obiwan Kenobi, a former Jedi, on the planet Tatooine. R2D2 and his inseparable companion droid, C-3PO, climb into an escape pod and are launched down to the planet. Vader sends Stormtroopers down to the planet to pursue the droids and sets course of the Star Destroyer for the Death Star with the captured Princess Leia. At 36 minutes into the film, we get the first brief view of the Death Star as the Star Destroyer approaches it.
The most prominent feature of the Death Star is the concave dish above the circumferential trench. In Star Wars literature, this is identified as the MK I Superlaser. During the events in Star Wars – A New Hope, this laser weapon becomes operational, as announced by Grand Moff Tarkin. What “operational” means is that this laser weapon that had previously had the power to destroy planetary cities and their entire populations (as depicted in Rogue One), now has the capability and power to destroy entire planets. The illustration below, taken from the frontispiece to the book Catalyst – A Rogue One Novel by James Luceno, shows an isometric cutaway of its design.
It is here I want to establish several significant points. As filmgoers witnessed, the Mk I Superlaser employs eight tributary lasers spaced around the periphery of the dish that when fired, combine at a focus point to create the main laser beam directed at the target. The main beam is colinear with the axis of the superlaser. There is no indication the main laser beam can be changed as to its firing angle. In space, all reference to what is up, down, left or right is lost. Therefore, the Death Star would either have to rotate so the the axis of the Mk I Superlaser is aimed directly at the target city or planet, or the Death Star would have to be “below” the planet with the axis of the superlaser precisely positioned to hit the target. However, we only see a closeup of the weapon firing; we do not see a distant shot showing all of the Death Star with its weapon firing.
ROGUE ONE ANOMILY:
There is a very brief scene in Rogue One where the Death Star prepares of fire is Mk I Superlaser at the city of Jedha, but the dish is shown below the circumferential trench from our perspective. Therefore, the Death Star is “inverted” relative to the planet with the target city of Jedha.
