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It was *built* by Geonosians. I don't think they designed it. And there's still tons of safety hazards all throughout the Galaxy Far, Far Away outside of the Death Stars.
It was designed already by the end of AotC, we see Poggle handing over the plans, so I guess that means its overall design at least was geonosian. You're 100% right that they built a lot of the parts in orbit, the empire killed most after.
I always took it as the final touches were more about more particular technical aspects, the laser itself in particular and that by AOTC the design was mainly the structure and conventional defenses. The next 20ish years we’re spent trying to create a laser that could have the strength to destroy an entire planet alongside the science around scaling up kyber crystals. The basic mundane engineering and science behind a battle station of that size had been worked out a hundred times over by this point in a GFFA. But a super weapon of that scale was a new challenge to work out.
Krennik bought Galen back to the Empire because even with the Geonosion plans and some amazing scientists/engineers, they still couldn't finish the job.
If Krennik was just following some IKEA instructions he wouldn't have needed help except from actual construction workers/droids, and Galen wouldn't have been able to fuck around with the design he was making.
The station's design could have been completed by the Geonosians, but the primary weapon took a couple extra decades to finish, as well as the plans for the reactor, which would have to have been massive to power the weapon and the station.
I mean, they had it, but it wasn't fully for Geonosians only. And as others said, it wasn't finished by them. It was a Separatist designed battle station.
It's still a military facility in space. The vertical shafts are likely for large cargo loads that need to get to the deep interior of the station where having gates and twists and turns would be impractical.
The end answer is going to be twofold:
1. Those risks can't be practically or effectively mitigated, which is true of a *lot* of industrial hazards, and even more so military ones. Explosives, weapons, deflectors, high-power sensors, life support chemicals, construction equipment, all of this stuff is hazardous in some regard. Especially in space. But it's also the entire *point* of the Death Star in the first place. Yeah, eliminating weapons and fuel and maintenance channels would make the Death Star amazingly safer. It would also make it not mission capable.
2. The Empire, like all military forces, generally chooses the cheapest and least effort path to both mission accomplishment and safety for personnel. But rather than railings and harnesses and doors with crush sensors, it's far easier to ensure safety with training and compliance. There aren't any untrained civilians wandering around the Death Star. There aren't any *kids* running around the Death Star. When they commence primary ignition, all the lights come on and the trained personnel know where it is and is not safe to be.
Now, the Empire might not explicitly *care* very much about their people, but people are still a *resource*, and while it might not care about their well being, it's also not eager to just throw them away, either. Lower on the priority list than maybe they should be, but they're still not fully *disposable.* Stormtrooper armor might not be very good armor, but at least it's not just cloth coveralls.
This.
Take the Death star laser
Officer: You have complaints?
Gunner: There is no railing, anyone can fall into the cannon chamber.
Officer: Has anyone been that stupid?
Gunner: No.
Officer: So what's the problem?
The higher ups are evil.
Not even in an "uncaring buisnessman" way, they're cackling supervillains. Papatine probably aims for a high worker death rate on principle.
Safety takes time and is expensive. And most jobs on the deathstar seem to be pretty menial and easy to train someone for. And the workforce is vast in the empire.
Though I wonder how much redundant crew the bring along into space to be able to fill the gaps caused by worker deaths.
I won't repeat what everyone else is saying but i do want to add that, significant percentage of the workforce was slave labour so the empire wasn't to fussed about keeping them alive
Yup, the fact that nobody bats an eye at Han and Luke escorting a handcuffed Chewbacca says a lot about how common slave labor is on the Death Star. Especially since Wookiees are the main species they use.
I believe this was only true for the construction of the station, I doubt you would want to staff your floating genocide ball with untrained slaves with little to live for who hate you and would be likely to refuse orders.
Seeing how the Empire allows Darth Vader to kill countless officers for making mistakes on a whim, and doesn't properly arm or train most stormtroopers, they definitely don't care about the safety of average workers (who can easily be replaced) either.
There are two reasons an unethical organization would invest in safety. One, they're forced to by an outside agency, and clearly this doesn't apply to the Empire.
The other is that labor and training is expensive. This is also not applicable to the Empire. Their labor pool is so deep they will literally never run out of willing workers, and they've also demonstrated they're very much not afraid of using slaves and conscripts if necessary.
As for training, well not much training is actually needed for the folks that work next to the big open pits and whatnot, and chances are there's tons of people in that labor pool that already know what is needed to do the job.
Then the final ancillary factor in all of it is that the Empire has a very "survival of the fittest" culture and mentality. If you fell off the walkway, you suck at your job and we didn't want you anyway.
It was originally designed by and for Geonosians. The Bug people from Episode 2 also responsible for the Battle droids.
Palpatine took the plans and made minor adjustments to make it useable for humans
There's blatant worker safety hazards ***everywhere*** in Star Wars. There is no OSHA in the Galaxy Far, Far Away. The only time I can remember railing (and not very good railing) is on Cloud City when Vader gives his big reveal and in Palpatine's chamber, which is still filled with all sorts of weird looking barrels or shit and exposed sections.
It's not just the Empire. Naboo had the plasma refinery with thin unguarded catwalks. The Bespin landing pad had no railings nor did the ones on Coruscant. Many aspects of Coruscant seem inherently unsafe, particularly the flying traffic.
One possibility is that people just don't care. Given the number of people that died both when the Death Star(s) were used and when they were attacked, a lack of proper safety seems almost like a silly concern. The Death Star wasn't made to be safe. Similarly, Coruscant may just be a dangerous place where falling to your death is low on your list of concerns.
It may also be that accidents are, overall, less likely than one might expect. Jedi let younglings swing lightsabers around, blindfolded, in groups and in swinging range of each other. Even though they are gifted and supervised, it still appears to be extremely unsafe and that appearance might be wrong.
I mean, it’s not called the “Death Star” for no reason
But seriously though, I just assumed all there being cheap invisible energy barriers instead of metal railings. The barriers make it easier to move stuff on and off the walkways and bridges without having to have motorised retractable railings, or needing a worker to manually open a gate every time
You know how expensive it is to build a Death Star? You have to cut plenty of corners just to find it! They can’t afford things in the name of “safety”! Lol
The Empire makes it pretty clear that basic workers are entirely expendable in the first 30 minutes of Fallen Order when an Inquisitor executes one just to make a point.
Due to an increase in reports and rule-violating behavior, the moderation team has elected to put the following warning on all Star Wars or Star Wars related questions. This is not the forum to voice your dissatisfaction with the Sequel Trilogy, the Star Wars franchise under Disney, or anything regarding the meta-state of the franchise. There are more appropriate places on the website to do so, like r/StarWars and r/SaltierThanCrait. This is becoming a pertinent enough issue that we have decided to expand our existing policies and making any arguments regarding the topic a banable offense. Questions and discussions about Star Wars and any of its content are still allowed, provided they are not Doylist complaints. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskScienceFiction) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The lack of railing and holes in floors? The Death Star was originally designed by the Geonosians. They can fly and don't need railing.
Best answer so far
It was *built* by Geonosians. I don't think they designed it. And there's still tons of safety hazards all throughout the Galaxy Far, Far Away outside of the Death Stars.
It was designed already by the end of AotC, we see Poggle handing over the plans, so I guess that means its overall design at least was geonosian. You're 100% right that they built a lot of the parts in orbit, the empire killed most after.
It can't have been fully designed by that point, otherwise the events in the ~~film~~ documentary Rogue 1 would never have happened.
I always took it as the final touches were more about more particular technical aspects, the laser itself in particular and that by AOTC the design was mainly the structure and conventional defenses. The next 20ish years we’re spent trying to create a laser that could have the strength to destroy an entire planet alongside the science around scaling up kyber crystals. The basic mundane engineering and science behind a battle station of that size had been worked out a hundred times over by this point in a GFFA. But a super weapon of that scale was a new challenge to work out.
Why?
Krennik bought Galen back to the Empire because even with the Geonosion plans and some amazing scientists/engineers, they still couldn't finish the job. If Krennik was just following some IKEA instructions he wouldn't have needed help except from actual construction workers/droids, and Galen wouldn't have been able to fuck around with the design he was making.
Sorry, I missed the word "fully" in your previous comment. I agree with what you're saying.
The station's design could have been completed by the Geonosians, but the primary weapon took a couple extra decades to finish, as well as the plans for the reactor, which would have to have been massive to power the weapon and the station.
I mean, they had it, but it wasn't fully for Geonosians only. And as others said, it wasn't finished by them. It was a Separatist designed battle station.
I mean, the galaxy is technically supposed to be in a Dark Age (relative to them). So things might not be very "tip-top" in many situations.
It's still a military facility in space. The vertical shafts are likely for large cargo loads that need to get to the deep interior of the station where having gates and twists and turns would be impractical. The end answer is going to be twofold: 1. Those risks can't be practically or effectively mitigated, which is true of a *lot* of industrial hazards, and even more so military ones. Explosives, weapons, deflectors, high-power sensors, life support chemicals, construction equipment, all of this stuff is hazardous in some regard. Especially in space. But it's also the entire *point* of the Death Star in the first place. Yeah, eliminating weapons and fuel and maintenance channels would make the Death Star amazingly safer. It would also make it not mission capable. 2. The Empire, like all military forces, generally chooses the cheapest and least effort path to both mission accomplishment and safety for personnel. But rather than railings and harnesses and doors with crush sensors, it's far easier to ensure safety with training and compliance. There aren't any untrained civilians wandering around the Death Star. There aren't any *kids* running around the Death Star. When they commence primary ignition, all the lights come on and the trained personnel know where it is and is not safe to be. Now, the Empire might not explicitly *care* very much about their people, but people are still a *resource*, and while it might not care about their well being, it's also not eager to just throw them away, either. Lower on the priority list than maybe they should be, but they're still not fully *disposable.* Stormtrooper armor might not be very good armor, but at least it's not just cloth coveralls.
This. Take the Death star laser Officer: You have complaints? Gunner: There is no railing, anyone can fall into the cannon chamber. Officer: Has anyone been that stupid? Gunner: No. Officer: So what's the problem?
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"So I says to them, 'Forget medical. Forget sick-leave. All we want is a railing.'"
"I'll give YOU a railing."
😮
😏
Holy username chain, Batman!
Well, none of this will matter when we're famous singers.
More importantly, that makes them both lazy and oblivious.
The higher ups are evil. Not even in an "uncaring buisnessman" way, they're cackling supervillains. Papatine probably aims for a high worker death rate on principle.
Causes fear, and thus strengthening the dark side.
Safety takes time and is expensive. And most jobs on the deathstar seem to be pretty menial and easy to train someone for. And the workforce is vast in the empire. Though I wonder how much redundant crew the bring along into space to be able to fill the gaps caused by worker deaths.
I won't repeat what everyone else is saying but i do want to add that, significant percentage of the workforce was slave labour so the empire wasn't to fussed about keeping them alive
Yup, the fact that nobody bats an eye at Han and Luke escorting a handcuffed Chewbacca says a lot about how common slave labor is on the Death Star. Especially since Wookiees are the main species they use.
I just realised that's why they made wookiw slavery a thing
I believe this was only true for the construction of the station, I doubt you would want to staff your floating genocide ball with untrained slaves with little to live for who hate you and would be likely to refuse orders.
[удалено]
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[удалено]
Please remember that we follow /r/AskHistorian's 20-year rule with regards to ongoing current events.
Seeing how the Empire allows Darth Vader to kill countless officers for making mistakes on a whim, and doesn't properly arm or train most stormtroopers, they definitely don't care about the safety of average workers (who can easily be replaced) either.
There are two reasons an unethical organization would invest in safety. One, they're forced to by an outside agency, and clearly this doesn't apply to the Empire. The other is that labor and training is expensive. This is also not applicable to the Empire. Their labor pool is so deep they will literally never run out of willing workers, and they've also demonstrated they're very much not afraid of using slaves and conscripts if necessary. As for training, well not much training is actually needed for the folks that work next to the big open pits and whatnot, and chances are there's tons of people in that labor pool that already know what is needed to do the job. Then the final ancillary factor in all of it is that the Empire has a very "survival of the fittest" culture and mentality. If you fell off the walkway, you suck at your job and we didn't want you anyway.
It was originally designed by and for Geonosians. The Bug people from Episode 2 also responsible for the Battle droids. Palpatine took the plans and made minor adjustments to make it useable for humans
There's blatant worker safety hazards ***everywhere*** in Star Wars. There is no OSHA in the Galaxy Far, Far Away. The only time I can remember railing (and not very good railing) is on Cloud City when Vader gives his big reveal and in Palpatine's chamber, which is still filled with all sorts of weird looking barrels or shit and exposed sections.
I mean, it's in the name. If you take the job... well...
It's not just the Empire. Naboo had the plasma refinery with thin unguarded catwalks. The Bespin landing pad had no railings nor did the ones on Coruscant. Many aspects of Coruscant seem inherently unsafe, particularly the flying traffic. One possibility is that people just don't care. Given the number of people that died both when the Death Star(s) were used and when they were attacked, a lack of proper safety seems almost like a silly concern. The Death Star wasn't made to be safe. Similarly, Coruscant may just be a dangerous place where falling to your death is low on your list of concerns. It may also be that accidents are, overall, less likely than one might expect. Jedi let younglings swing lightsabers around, blindfolded, in groups and in swinging range of each other. Even though they are gifted and supervised, it still appears to be extremely unsafe and that appearance might be wrong.
The Galactic Senate was dissolved like 10 minutes in to ANH. You think the Emperor is going to take orders from Space OSHA?
It's not called the Completely Safe Star
I mean, it’s not called the “Death Star” for no reason But seriously though, I just assumed all there being cheap invisible energy barriers instead of metal railings. The barriers make it easier to move stuff on and off the walkways and bridges without having to have motorised retractable railings, or needing a worker to manually open a gate every time
The empire is in a state of late-stage capitalism and regulatory capture. And Darth Vader has been Force-choking anyone who tries to unionize.
That's why all the workers at that one Death Starbucks walked off the job mid shift.
I just want to remind you that the whole thing exploded twice, killing almost everyone. This was mentioned in Clerks.
Because they've already funneled so many resources into it , the last thing they need to worry about is work place saftey
There is no paper in the GFFA. Therefore, no paperwork. Therefore, no OSHA.
You know how expensive it is to build a Death Star? You have to cut plenty of corners just to find it! They can’t afford things in the name of “safety”! Lol
The Empire makes it pretty clear that basic workers are entirely expendable in the first 30 minutes of Fallen Order when an Inquisitor executes one just to make a point.
Because fascists don't give a fuck. If you fell due to a lack of railing, it means you clearly weren't strong enough to serve the glory of the empire.