It's been a few days since my last post, but I have come up with another thingie to squash. It concerns the various versions of the Death Star. When I was flipping through the Art of Revenge of the Sith book I seemed to notice that in a production painting there were TWO Death Stars being built in the shipyard at the end of the movie. This can not be seen in the movie (you see the outline in the background of ONE Death Star being built).

Three questions rise from this:

1) The first DS took about twenty years to build, we all know that. Did Palps, however, plan to built a second bigger version of the first Death Star simultaneously? This would explain the question of it being virtually impossible for Palps to built another DS between the destruction of DS1 and the events of Return of the Jedi (although DS2 of course far from complete was at that time).

2) The plans for a DS obviously were in the hands of the Sith since the end of the Battle on Geonosis. In the webstrip Reversal of Fortune it is clearly said by Poggle the Lesser that the Separatists should hold out until their Great Weapon (read: DS) is complete. Did Dooku trick Poggle, Shu Mai and the others into starting the construction of DS1 (and maybe even DS2), so they would have a false sense of security, with the intent to kill them all off and finish the job themselves? (BTW. if you look at the DS's in AotC and RotS you can see that the plans are not the same as the finished product, just look at the size and position of the dish.)

3) Where is this shipyard we see at the end of Revenge of the Sith located? In the Jedi Academy trilogy it is told that Tarkin had something called the Maw Installation inside a cluster of black holes. This is where a prototype of a DS was found (one of many prototypes, maybe?) by our favorite heroes. In addition, DS2 was built in orbit of the Fourth Moon of Endor. If the second Death Star being constructed in the Art of Revenge painting was truly DS2, the work in progress had to have been moved to the site at Endor, or was it that the construction of DS1 was also performed in orbit of Endor. Phew! Where was it?

So, with that off of my mind I can now get some decent sleep.

GO SQUASH!

Edit: A lot of information on this topic can be found here: Star Wars Technical Commentaries.