The Empire begins with the Fourth Scourge.

Chapter 2471 Death Star Project (Part )

2472. Death Star Project (Part )

After temporarily solving the problem of the Geonosian rebellion, the problem of the DS-1 battle station was not completely solved, or in other words, the problem of the Geonosians was just a trivial problem.

The biggest problem with the DS-1 combat space station is confidentiality.

Because many people do not support this project, but in order for the project to proceed smoothly, it is necessary to raise huge amounts of funds and materials.

For example, the main structural material of DS-1 is resistant steel, which is a high-strength alloy steel. Although the refining technology of this material is mature, it still exceeds the existing resistant steel production of the Galactic Empire to meet the construction of a spherical space station with a diameter of 160 kilometers.

In other words, in order to meet the construction of DS-1, the Galactic Empire had to more than double its resistant steel production. This meant more factories, more mines, more smelters, in other words, more capital investment.

The biggest engineering accident was when DS-1 arrived at a secret space in the Talasia system to start construction. In order to save transportation and mining costs, Orson Krennic ordered to use local materials. The Galactic Empire's engineering team dragged hundreds of asteroids in the Talasia system to the construction site and crushed them on the spot, and began to smelt resistant steel from the metal raw materials in the asteroids.

After working for several months, they were disappointed to find that the metal deposits produced in the Talasia system could not be used to smelt resistant steel. All the work of the past few months was in vain, and after a long time, they could only transport materials from other places.

This meant that even the supply of raw materials for DS-1 had to be transported all over the galaxy. However, during this period, the rebels were very active, and many construction materials were hijacked or destroyed along the way, resulting in heavy losses.

The activeness of the rebels prompted the Galactic Empire Intelligence Department to further strengthen the confidentiality of the DS-1 battle space station construction plan. However, in order to keep a project confidential, it often has to disguise the project, re-plan the confidential transportation route, or even set up a separate department or open a company to carry out confidentiality work.

This has led to the further prevalence of bureaucracy. The number of people involved in the entire DS-1 construction plan has reached tens of millions! And among this huge number, less than one-third is actually used for project production.

This means that the project requires a huge amount of funds and resources from the major financial groups and military-industrial complexes in the galaxy, but they cannot know that these funds and resources are used to build the DS-1 combat space station. In order to achieve this goal, the entire project was twisted and turned, and a lot of useless work was done.

But Orson Krennic did his job well, and by now, in August of 10 BBY, the main framework of the DS-8 battle station had been completed.

Most importantly, the enormous hypermatter reactor had been installed at the core of DS-1, and on August 8, it officially began to supply energy to the entire space station.

This was a breakthrough. From this point on, the energy supply for the entire project became very convenient, without the need for energy delivery ships. The enormous energy output of DS-1 was enough to meet the energy needs of the entire project!

With sufficient energy, the engineering team began to build various processing plants outside the space station as planned. This allowed the construction and processing of many parts to be carried out locally, greatly improving efficiency.

The main engine of DS-1 is built in the middle of the core column with a diameter of 3 kilometers and a length of 160 kilometers, which runs through the north and south poles of the space station. Surrounding the core column, a horizontal support structure extends to the surrounding area and supports the ring-shaped equatorial structure of the space station.

At this time, the DS-1 combat space station looked like a giant gyroscope.

Then, based on the equatorial ring, three ring structures are extended towards the north and south poles. This is the main support structure of the entire spherical space station, consisting of a huge core column, an equatorial ring, plus three rings in the northern hemisphere and three rings in the southern hemisphere.

Then, seven gravity generators with different directions were installed at the positions of the seven rings, which means that there are seven different directions of gravity inside the DS-1 combat space station, which will ensure the comfort of the personnel inside the space station to the greatest extent possible.

In addition, armor more than 30 meters thick was installed in some of the main defense belts. This would be an extremely terrifying amount of work, because the surface area of ​​the entire DS-1 battle station reached more than 80000 square kilometers! The amount of armor steel required reached an extremely terrifying level!

Next, the problem that Orson Krennic was most worried about finally began to be solved.

With energy supply and gravity generator, he could finally let the Geonosians build residential areas. This was a very important development for the Geonosians, because they would no longer have to live in the surrounding engineering spacecraft, squeezed into cramped cabins.

Three months later, when the initial construction of a residential area capable of accommodating 200 million people was completed, these Geonosians who had a home would no longer have any excuse to rebel.

……

While Orson Krennic was struggling to push forward the construction of the main structure of DS-1, another part of this huge project also made great progress.

weapon system.

In fact, during the Clone Wars, the design blueprint that the Geonosians gave to Palpatine through Count Dooku did not include the weapon system, because the super laser weapon of the DS-1 battle station, which could directly destroy a planet with one shot, had never been completed.

Although the research direction of this super laser weapon has been determined, which is to use a large number of Kyber crystals to focus energy, and through the energy amplification properties of Kyber crystals, form powerful laser beams, thereby achieving the level of directly destroying the planet.

But it is still very difficult to achieve this.

The Extractor, developed by Wookiee scientists, is an attempt to miniaturize this super laser. However, during the test of the Extractor project, the Alaris satellite where the project was located was raided by Severance Tann. This incident can only be said to be the Galactic Empire's bad luck, because Severance Tann found out that the Galactic Empire had a secret project here by accident, and then she went straight to kill without knowing what the project was and snatched the Extractor prototype.

This delayed the Galactic Empire's research on the Extractors for a long time. Fortunately, Severance Tann took away the prototype, but the experimental data was not taken away, which allowed the Empire's research to continue.

Tang Xiao, who had obtained the Extractor prototype, also began reverse engineering the Extractor project, and later developed the Extractor Cannon and installed it on the Thor mecha. After that, there was no further research. The Dawn Kingdom's Extractor technology remained at the size of the Thor mecha.

However, the Galactic Empire has invested heavily in this area and has begun to gradually scale up the Extractor technology.

It was also at this time that the entire DS-1 project was placed under the jurisdiction of the Imperial Military, and Senior Moff Wilhuff Tarkin joined in as another leader of the project.

In name, Wilhuff Tarkin joined to help Orson Krennic coordinate the relationship between the military and the engineering corps, but in reality, this was just another result of the Imperial Emperor Palpatine playing the game of checks and balances - he did not want to see any one person take all the credit for the DS-1 battle station project. It is not impossible to give credit and reward, but they must not be given to the same person.

Of course, just as Palpatine expected, Wilhuff Tarkin and Orson Krennic began a very fierce infighting.

Wilhuff Tarkin hopes to become the commander of the DS-1 combat space station through the construction of the station. As long as he can do this, he will have enough capital to compete with Dunn Wessex, the King of the North.

Orson Krennic also hopes to use the halo of "Father of the Death Star" to become the most powerful person in the Galactic Empire after His Majesty the Emperor, and truly be second only to the Emperor.

As a result, the struggle between the two became intense from the very beginning, even to the point of sabotaging each other and even deliberately creating accidents!

But overall, Orson Krennic was the first to supervise the DS-1 construction plan, and his control over the entire project was still higher than that of Wilhuff Tarkin.

Soon after Tarkin took over the leadership of the project, a serious accident occurred in the weapons system that Tarkin was responsible for. Some Geonosians suddenly launched a riot, destroying the results of several months of work, and the conflict caused hundreds of deaths.

Taking this opportunity, Orson Krennic exiled Wilhuff Tagin to the marginal area to be responsible for the supply of raw materials.

Afterwards, Orson Krennic found his former classmate and energy genius Galen Erso to assist him in the research and development of the DS-1 super laser cannon.

However, he was also very clear that Galen Erso was a pacifist and a liberal, and he would never join in the development of DS-1, a weapon specifically used for massacre.

Therefore, he disguised this super laser project as a research topic called "space-based energy transmission", ostensibly studying how to directly supply energy to facilities on the planet from large space stations or large warships.

He told Galen Erso that once this project is completed, it will be able to solve the energy supply problem of some backward planets. Once there is sufficient energy supply, the economic and livelihood development of these planets will be greatly accelerated, allowing the people of those backward planets to live a good life.

Galen Erso readily agreed to the project, but he was still cautious and secretly sent his daughter Jyn Erso and his wife to the Outer Rim to hide.

Orson Krennic didn't know that Galen Erso's joining didn't help the development of the DS-1 superlaser much. Because under his organization, the development of the superlaser was almost complete. Those unknown Imperial engineers and scientists did a good job, but Orson Krennic was not confident that such a huge project would go so smoothly.

Galen Erso took advantage of Orson Krennic's trust in his professional knowledge, gradually improved his position, and finally successfully entered the core management level of the project.

It was only then that he realized that Orson Krennic had been lying to him. What he had been researching was a super laser cannon that was powerful enough to destroy an entire planet!

When he questioned Orson Krennic, the latter shamelessly told him that it was all about delivering energy from the space station to the planet, and there was no difference between the two except for the power.

Now, Orson Krennic was feeling very proud and he had no time to pay attention to Galen Erso's big talk.

Because in 10 BBY, in a parliament meeting in August, the Imperial Emperor Palpatine directly announced the existence of the DS-8 battle space station and named it the "Death Star"!

This news was like a huge bomb dropped on the Imperial Senate! Everyone was stunned with surprise, especially when they heard that the construction of the Death Star was 60% complete, they were extremely terrified.

Palpatine directly ordered the entire empire to immediately concentrate all resources to complete the construction of the Death Star within a year.

He also stated that the nationalization plan of major military-industrial complexes previously implemented was carried out to promote the construction of the Death Star.

He ordered Allman-Tag and his advanced technological alliance to devote all their resources to the construction of the Death Star.

This order is actually very meaningful, because the Advanced Technology Alliance is only a technology research and development institution, and does not have the ability to build a super project like the Death Star. The reason why Palpatine issued this order is actually to let the Tag Company led by Orman Tag contribute money and manpower.

Allman Tucker was worthy of being Palpatine's number one bootlicker. He immediately understood what he meant and asked the Tag family to gather almost all their resources and supply them to the construction of the Death Star to speed up the progress of the project.

At the same time, Orson Krennic, who had received great help, began to install the Death Star's hyperspace engine. It was expected to be completed within two months, and then the Death Star would be moved to the next destination, Scarif, to install and test the weapon system.

However, Orson Krennic never expected that when everything was going in the best direction, a little Geonosian almost ruined everything!

……

Geonosis planet, holy site ruins.

In this holy place that was deserted due to the kidnapping of Emperor Kalina, a short Geonosian walked in holding a container.

Ganzo Dauso - Geonosian Chief Engineer and head of the B-1 battle droid project.

He flapped his wings and flew to an altar in the center of the holy land. He opened the container and found a Geonosian head inside!

He placed the head on the altar, and soon, a ray of light emanated from the altar, shooting straight towards a certain direction in the universe!

Ganzo-Dasso looked up at the sky and murmured, "I found you... traitor..."