How Palpatine Hid Death Star Construction From the Senate & Jedi - Star Wars Explained

the Death Star was the most terrifying piece of military construction the Galaxy had ever seen there had been many horrific super weapons built in the past but by the time of the Galactic Civil War the idea that something like the Death Star could exist in their time was Unthinkable to the average citizen the planet destroying battle station was something that was intrinsic to many of sidious's plans especially after becoming Emperor and as such he sunk in a massive budget time energy and resources into its construction however one thing that would hinder him for 19 years was the Imperial Senate although the Senate was more of a nuisance than an actual threat to Palpatine as Emperor he was still yet to acquire absolute power like he would in zero BBY when he abolished the Senate entirely by then the emperor had control over all the planets in all sectors of the Galaxy through a system of moths Grand moths and governors that he himself put in place but during the time that the Senate was actually still in power how did Palpatine manage to keep the death star project top secret it seems unlikely that something so big would escape the notice of so many important people well it seems Palpatine is much craftier than you may think so come along with us today my friends as we open up yet another holocron and discover how Palpatine managed to successfully Blindside the entire galaxy with a secret super weapon to make this story more complete we'll be utilizing both Legends as well as Star Wars Canon since this idea has been deeply explored in both continuities but the best place to begin learning about how Palpatine kept this project a secret is with the Clone Wars itself after Tarkin brought the idea and plans of the dest Archer Chancellor Palpatine for his consideration the chancellor would pretend as though the plans got stolen and had fallen into enemy hands in reality palpatina's Darth Sidious had sent the plans over to Poggle the Lesser on Geonosis it was there that the plans for the battle station were finalized and construction on the super laser began each piece of the Death Star would take many years to build and the very beginning of the construction was exclusively focused on getting the complete and crowning Jewel of the station which was of course the planet destroying capabilities once the Battle of Geonosis occurred Count Dooku would ensure the safe survival of the Death Star plans from the system delivering them safely to Sidious hands personally on Coruscant at this point though Sidious ran into a small hiccup he had lost the geonosian workforce but still wanted to continue construction on the weapon Palpatine only saw one option to make this an official Republic project and so he pretended as though the Death Star plans were a recovered enemy blueprint for a different kind of battle station altogether and afterwards he presented the idea of the military creating a republic version of the weapon only 150 total people in the Republic were briefed about the supposed recovered enemy plants and none of them were ever brought to the senate floor to present to the wider Senate at large Palpatine continued to have the Death Star built right under the nose of the Republic senators and the Jedi doing so by placing it under the guise of a republic military project they continued Construction in the Geonosis system and made sure that it wouldn't be discovered by prying Eyes by placing a no-fly zone in that system overall only very specific people had high enough clearance to know about or even visit this project none of them of course were Jedi from the Shadows Palpatine would organize a few covert opmissions for certain divisions of the Grand Army in order to Aid in building the Death Star in particular the galactic Marines played a huge part in their campaign on maikito the Marines were actually sent there to recover an ancient migetan Crystal a crystal that was supposedly an experimental power source the story to the higher-ups was that the chancellor required it for a top secret tributary laser stream project a project codenamed hammertong which of course was the Super laser for the Death Star itself the galactic Marines along with the help of Jedi kiadi Mundi would act actually be successful in the retrieval of this Crystal right before Order 66 once the empire was actually in full swing cities was feeling very confident about everything he had managed to pull off but now was not the time to kick back with a glass of carillion Ale the newly crowned Emperor Palpatine was a man hard at work his attention split in several different directions as Emperor he was busy with creating new legislation that would gain him more control over the Galaxy as well as building up the Imperial military as a dark lord he had secret Sith projects such as the one on exagol that he was keeping an eye on as he wanted to go for ultimate power and immortality as a mentor he was becoming increasingly concerned and stressed out with the state of his new Apprentice Lord Vader who was having a lot of trouble adjusting to his new life not to mention he still had to keep up a face for the galactic public and the Senate as well as to keep an eye on the second phase of the Jedi Purge on top of all this there was the death star that he he was still needing to build and keep hidden from the Imperial Senate so it is no wonder that it took upwards of two decades before the battle station was ready for deployment and one of the biggest issues Palpatine was now facing came down to simple numbers despite being Emperor he still had to answer for every discrepancy in the Imperial finances and labor force it was going to be noticeable if huge amounts of credits and laborers were just Vanishing or being whisked away to some unknown location once again Sidious had to be crafty and he did just that first things first he needed money an embezzlement was the way it was an established thing that the imperial military answered to the emperor alone and not the Senate the military itself was almost like its own entity and branch of government in the Empire with how much power it truly held the reason we say this is because it's important to note that hardly any senators or political officials had any sort of claim to classified military information Palpatine would then funnel a bunch of credit it's into each of these projects evenly claiming that they were all builds for the Imperial Navy in reality each of these projects was actually just a piece of the Death Star one that would come together perfectly in the end and now that the checkbooks are balanced he needed workers the sheer amount of droid labor required for this thing would take far too long and would require far too many factories that needed to be occupied with the project construction so unfortunately for Sidious he would need physical laborers the Imperial Workforce couldn't be used for obvious reasons and not to mention there weren't that many of them whatsoever Palpatine's plan then was to legalize slavery which is one of the first things he did as Emperor this was a law that was passed quietly and no one in the Senate even knew about it as Palpatine had used a legal loophole as this was being passed he had already rounded up many Wookies on Kashyyyk following order 66 and it was through a lot of Wookie slave labor and slaves of other races that the Death Star was constructed Palpatine had managed to do this very quietly and only very specific people with clearance had access to this key information not even thrawn knew about this until he picked up a distress signal from a slave transport ship thrawn had no idea what the ship was but was kept from being allowed to search it by the Stormtroopers under him who had orders from higher up the command chain thrawn managed to get his way through though and he and Eli vonto were able to ascertain that the vessel was indeed a slave transport one that was recently attacked and liberated neither of them knew that the Empire used slaves or that slavery was even legal letting us know that this aspect of the death star's construction was kept so secret that not even commanders or Admirals knew about it when it came to the actual space used for the construction this was the final piece of the puzzle with workers money plans and everything at his control the last remaining situation to solve was where and how this thing was going to be built what Palpatine did was take huge advantage of Reserve Factory planets and shipyards they even resorted to confiscating and buying out factories and shipyards from independent contractors for various construction pieces this included especially certain Star Destroyer shipyards as those were the only ones with hangers big enough to house building parts of the death star's outer shell when it came to the raw resources such as durasteel and particularly cortosis the Republic would offer large sums of money towards independent and family-owned kurtosis mines so that they could drill it clean from resources this would happen to arenda price who would sell out her family's mine on lothal to the Empire thus setting up the Empire's presence on no thought that we see in Star Wars Rebels and through all of this the Empire used Less Traveled hyperspace lanes that were typically only used by smugglers in order to move the resources Between Worlds Palpatine's ways of circumventing the Senate were nothing less than pure genius and a master stroke in manipulation and subterfuge but of course he had to top this all off by ensuring that the imperial Senate were focused on less important things he would purposefully cause problems in other systems or allow problems to flourish so that the imperial senators and representative kept their eyes focused on other problems rather of course then snooping into the Imperial military he also kept them bickering and debating about topics of little importance so they felt as though they were actually making a difference in the Empire which of course in the end they were not all of this to serve as a distraction while Palpatine finished his Grand project the Death Star and now my friends we finally see the impact that results when influential people like Padme aren't present in the Senate bail Organa and mon mothma did their best to circumvent the emperor's progress but unfortunately Palpatine had already gotten to most of the other Senators either through money in their pockets or a gun at their back but anyway my friends what are your thoughts on this and how Darth Sidious kept the Imperial Senate from discovering the Death Star did you know about this before this holocron as always my friends thank you so much for visiting our archives and as always May the force be with you

Channel: The Stupendous Wave

Views: 58,022

Keywords: Death Star, Star Wars, Star Wars Theory, Jedi, Sith, Dark Side, Empire Strikes Back, Darth Sidious, Darth Maul

Id: Tmn8lCX09Pk

Length: 10min 11sec (611 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 17 2023