Was Death Star II Under Construction in The Empire Strikes Back?

[spartan181]

I never recall hearing the Death Star II being mentioned by anyone with the Rebellion or the Empire in The Empire Strkes Back. Was it under construction in Empire or was the construction started in the few years between it and Return of the Jedi?

[GeneralPloKoon]

Actually Return of The Jedi takes place right after the Empire Strikes back. So I guess the second Death Star was being built.

[spartan181]

Okay, thanks. I've always thought Return of The Jedi was two years after The Empire Strikes Back.

[K_Kinnison]

the events that take place between ESB and and RotJ are covered in "Shadows of the Empire" it could take a few weeks or months of time. Construction would have had to start sometime between ANH and ESB

[Fredi]

Actually Return of The Jedi takes place right after the Empire Strikes back. So I guess the second Death Star was being built.

I do believe this as-well.

[Ztalker]

There is nothing to believe, it's all set in canon continuity:

 

A new hope 0 BBY-0 ABY (where bby is Before Battle of Yavin and aby is After Battle of Yavin)

Empire Strikes Back 3 ABY

Return of the Jedi: 4 ABY

 

And on the same site, earliest 'sighting' of the ship in 3 aby and says it would only take 2 - 4 years to finish the entire station.

[LordJhredmo]

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Death_Star_II#Construction

 

I trust and love Wookieepedia, generally. This is another useful case for the site.

 

Wookieepedia Death Star II Article

 

"Unlike the Empire's first Death Star, which, as a result of supply and design problems, took nineteen years to be considered an operational battlestation, this much larger Death Star took far less time, approximately two to four years, to construct. Methods of faster construction had been developed in the years since the original station's conception, added to the fact that Imperial engineers made sure to allocate enough space on the station for the maximum possible amount of self-replicating construction droids."

 

I still don't see the logic of how the first was made in 19 years with many resources poured into it, and its smaller size, but the second (which was much larger) was easily over 3/5 completed by the Battle of Endor. The explanation for the "self-replicating construction droids" and the Imperial engineers' allocation hardly accounts or makes up for 15 years (benefit of the doubt, instead of saying 17, which is more ridiculous) of construction on a much smaller and simplistic scale...

 

Responses? I eagerly await.

-Evix

[Ztalker]

Fully agree...

 

There have been some retcons regarding this though...

-First Death Star was severely sabotaged by Galen Marek in The Force Unleashed

-They couldn't get the laser to work properly (so a prototype only featuring the laser only was build before work went on)

 

But still, it doesn't explain why it took 17 years.

I believe infrastructure at the time of the second Death Star was much better, since ALL worlds had pledged loyalty to the Emperor, opposed to the time when the first one was build, when the senate was still operational and transporting materials from and through other star systems might have been difficult.

[LordJhredmo]

Thank you, Ztalker.

 

In the end, it's all a matter of basic logistics. It was a physical impossibility to compare the times of completion (or in the DSII's case, near completion).

[Kurgan]

It's a major problem now that the prequels are out, and I simply don't buy the excuses. You can tell from Lucas' own explanation on the ROTS DVD commentary that it's just something he didn't care much about when creating the movies, he just wanted the visual "impact" of showing a partially completed Death Star at the end of the last Star Wars movie.

 

The ROTJ crawl makes it sound as if this is the first we've heard of it (notice how it says "has begun construction" not that this happened several years ago), that it must have begun construction after the credits rolled at the end of ESB.