Star Destroyer

• 20 AT-ATs }} • Heavy turbolaser turrets (6) but the tremendous costs incurred by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) when production began helped lead Lucas to use a single "terrifyingly large" Star Destroyer instead of four. ILM built a shooting model that was about half the size of the model for the Tantive IV the Star Destroyer was chasing. Nevertheless, they added additional hull details to the Star Destroyer model. The Imperial I-class Star Destroyers are white, as shown in A New Hope, Rogue One, and Solo. The Imperial II-class Star Destroyers in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi are grey. Depiction The iconic Imperial-class Star Destroyer first appears in the opening scene of Star Wars (1977), where the Imperial Star Destroyer Devastator (carrying Darth Vader) chases the CR90 Corvette Tantive IV (carrying Princess Leia) above Tatooine after the latter had fled from Scarif. Background literature describes Imperial-class Star Destroyers as the chief warship of the Imperial Navy and symbol of Imperial might. These enormous capital ships are used to enforce the Emperor's will, bolster Imperial-backed governments, and act as mobile headquarters for senior Imperial commanders. At the Empire's height there were over 25,000 Star Destroyers in existence, requiring roughly 925 million crew. Darth Vader's Devastator is the last of the Imperial I-class ships to be built by Kuat Drive Yards before switching to the Imperial II-class, a fleet of which take part in the Battle of Hoth as depicted in The Empire Strikes Back (1980). Although the battle is won by Imperial forces, Vader orders his Star Destroyers to focus on capturing the Millennium Falcon rather than hunt down the escaping Rebel transports, allowing many to escape. The Falcon manages to evade this pursuit by hiding in the sensor blind spot of the Star Destroyer Avenger. These ships play a major role in the Battle of Endor as depicted in Return of the Jedi (1983). During the battle, Imperial Star Destroyers prove vulnerable to fleets of starfighters flown by skilled Rebel pilots, who exploit the ships' exposed bridges and deflector shield generators to cause damage. Analysis Examining what it would take to realistically build an Imperial Star Destroyer, it was estimated in 2016 that such a vessel would cost $636 billion USD. However, getting the parts into space to construct the Star Destroyer would require an additional US$44.4 trillion in launch costs, suggesting that asteroid mining and refining technologies would have to be developed first to make it more economical. More recent estimates suggest a cost of over US$100 trillion based on the Imperial Star Destroyer's stated weight of approximately 40 million tons, making it outside the scope of any nation to build on their own. Joe Pappalardo of Popular Mechanics argues that the Imperial Star Destroyer is a poorly-designed spaceship, being asymmetrical with its superstructure jutting out in one direction. Additionally, while its wedge shape would make sense for atmospheric travel, it serves no purpose in space. He argues a more realistic and effective design would be symmetrical and bowl-shaped like a saucer. Cultural influence Lego has released multiple different Star Destroyer kits over the years, from small sets with just 21 pieces to the largest versions with thousands of pieces. These include two Ultimate Collector Series models, the first of which was released in 2002. Measuring long and , it sold for $269.99 until being retired in 2007. The second UCS Star Destroyer was larger, long and wide, and sold for $699.99 between 2019 and 2022. == Super Star Destroyer ==

Concept and design For The Empire Strikes Back, George Lucas wanted Darth Vader's new flagship, Executor, to be huge and to play a greater role in the film. According to chief model maker Lorne Peterson, the Executor's model was long and constructed with over 150,000 individual lights. The resulting model was so heavy it required additional support to keep from overwhelming the Dykstraflex's mechanical structure. The ship was originally scaled to appear long according to Lorne, though later sources would amend this figure. The largest and most powerful of these is the Executor, which first appeared in The Empire Strikes Back (1980) as the personal flagship of Darth Vader. At least twelve of these vessels were built by the Empire, including the Executor, Annihilator, Ravager and Arbitrator, but the exact number is unknown thanks to Imperial propaganda and black budgets. If a model of the Executor was built to scale and placed hovering over New York City, it would cast a shadow over the island of Manhattan. Cultural influence Like the Imperial Star Destroyer, the Super Star Destroyer has also been merchandised. Lego released a 3,152-piece model of the Executor. Kenner wanted to use a less ominous name than Executor for the toy playset of Darth Vader's meditation chamber. An advertisement agency's list of 153 alternatives included Starbase Malevolent, Black Coven, Haphaestus VII, and Cosmocurse; An electronic Super Star Destroyer toy released by Hasbro "is the rarest among Hasbro's Collector Fleet". == Venator Star Destroyer ==

• 420 starfighters Depiction The Venator-class Star Destroyer makes its first theatrical appearance in Revenge of the Sith during the opening Battle of Coruscant. Within the Star Wars setting, these ships are regarded as the most powerful capital ships of the Republic Navy during the Clone Wars, serving double duty as battleships and starfighter carriers. These massive ships require a relatively small crew to operate, a deliberate feature compensating for the fact that the Separatists can produce battle droids faster than the Republic can grow clone troopers. As a true warship, the Venator-class can feed nearly its entire reactor output (which at maximum power consumes 40,000 tons of fuel per second) into its heavy turbolasers to devastating effect. During the Clone Wars these Star Destroyers, referred to also as Republic attack cruisers or Jedi cruisers, play an important role combating Separatist fleets and providing supporting fire for ground forces. This version of the Venator, part of the Ultimate Collector Series, was released in celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Star Wars: The Clone Wars TV show. Measuring long, wide and tall, the set consists of 5,374 pieces and comes with a commemorative plaque, at an original retail price of $649.99. For the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show, noted modder Sander van der Velden created a custom-built PC made to look like a Venator Star Destroyer. Built around a fully-functional, liquid-cooled PC, the surrounding case was constructed in the shape of a Venator using aluminum and 3D printed material. The final product required 400 hours of work to complete. == Resurgent Star Destroyer ==

• Over 100 assault vehicles Concept and design Various concept art for a new class of Star Destroyers was created in the development of The Force Awakens, with a finalized designed — drawn by VFX art director James Clyne — approved in July 2014. Clyne had experimented with using negative spaces in creating the Star Destroyer, similar to his earlier work on Star Trek Into Darkness. He said he had fun working on it as director J. J. Abrams was heavily involved in the process and offered suggestions. Clyne also drew concept art for the Finalizer's hangar, and when it came time to build the set at Pinewood Studios, he relocated there for a month to supervise the construction. Depiction Resurgent-class Star Destroyers are described in background literature as a clear violation of the treaties between the New Republic and the First Order. The development of such capital ships is kept a secret for many years by the First Order — constructed deep within the Unknown Regions — but once they become aware General Leia and the Resistance go to great lengths to track and report on such vessels to the New Republic. However, Leia is considered a warmonger by many in the Senate and so her warnings are dismissed until it is too late. Cultural influence When the Finalizer's name was first revealed, Brent McKnight of MovieWeb felt like it was both silly and frightening, saying "[i]t sounds like something a little kid would come up with, but it's also super ominous and intimidating at the same time." He also observed the design was instantly recognizable as a Star Destroyer while having appropriate differences to represent the thirty years that took place between its introduction in the story and the original. B. Alan Orange of MovieWeb also felt the design of the Finalizer was intimidating and scary while still being instantly recognizable as a Star Destoyer. They also believed it had the "perfect pulp name", keeping in theme with the movie's new superweapon, Starkiller Base. YouTube content creator "LegoSpencer" was inspired to build a model of the TIE fighter hangar bay on the Finalizer, a process which took six weeks to complete. The opening scene of The Last Jedi shows a fleet of Resurgent-class Star Destroyers appearing above the Resistance base on D'Qar. Using the principal of angular resolution and their known length, Professor Rhett Allain determined the Star Destroyers had an angular size of .75 degrees, putting them at a distance of 221 kilometers. The same ships would still be visible if they were in low Earth orbit at about 400 kilometers (the same as the International Space Station) but with an angular size of .4 degrees. == Mega Star Destroyer ==

• Heavy turbolasers Concept and design Director Rian Johnson came up for the idea of basing the Supremacy on a flying wing, picking the final exterior look from concept art created by design supervisor Kevin Jenkins. "It's a big flying city," said Jenkins. "Vader's Executor is simply a headquarters, but Snoke doesn't have a planet, so he lives on the ship." The Supremacy's bridge was also designed by Jenkins, who wanted it to mirror the wideness of the ship itself. Depiction Described as the only Mega-class Star Destroyer in the galaxy, the Supremacy serves not only as the flagship but as the capital of the First Order. Rather than choosing one of the settled planets claimed by the First Order, this decision for a mobile headquarters is said to represent the Order's dream of restoring the Empire and expanding upon it. Built at a staggering cost within the Unknown Regions, the existence of "Snoke's boudoir" is only a rumor among Resistance personnel until it finally reveals itself. Rhett Allain, an associate professor at Southeastern Louisiana University, examined the turbolaser shots fired by the Supremacy in The Last Jedi and observed how these shots arced through space as opposed to flying straight as in previous movies. Noting that these shots took 1.58 seconds to reach the Raddus, he estimated they were traveling 100,000 meters per second with an apparent vertical acceleration of 2.4 × 10 meters per second squared. Cultural influence Upon the first reveal of the Supremacy, B. Alan Orange noted that, despite the ship's unique design, it still retained a familiar shape which immediately identified it as belonging to the First Order. Corey Larson of Screen Rant believed that, regardless of the film's wider reputation, the introduction of the Supremacy and its subsequent destruction during The Last Jedi represented one of the coolest additions to the franchise from the Star Wars sequel trilogy. John Orquiola meanwhile felt the ship represented an ongoing superweapon problem with the franchise. While crediting Rian with not introducing another Death Star-like weapon, it still showed that the First Order, like the Empire before it, was obsessed with equating size with power and creating "unbeatable" superweapons which are eventually destroyed. == Sith Star Destroyer ==

• Deflector shield generators Construction is continued after its fall thanks to Sith loyalists on the executive boards of many ship manufacturers secretly funneling resources to the project. Automation is incorporated to reduce crew size, many of whom are the children of Sith Loyalists trained their entire lives for this purpose. The distinguishing feature of these Sith Star Destroyers is an axial superlaser powerful enough to shatter a planet. Such power is made possible by a solar ionization reactor channeling the energy of a miniature sun through kyber crystals. However, hangar space and storage are sacrificed to make room for the superlaser, and the connection between superlaser and reactor would result in the destruction of the entire ship if one or the other were destroyed. Emblazoned with the red markings of the Sith Eternal fleet, hundreds of these Sith Star Destroyers are ready when Allegiant General Pryde (Richard E. Grant) is ordered by Palpatine to deploy them across the galaxy. The icy world of Kijimi is the first to be destroyed by the Star Destroyer Derriphan. However, before the rest of the fleet carry out this plan, the Resistance attacks their base on Exegol, and thanks to the timely arrival of the Citizen's Fleet are able to destroy them. J.R. Zambrano meanwhile felt the ships exemplified the laziness of the film's crazy excesses and criticized how despite their planet-destroying power a makeshift fleet of civilians was able to destroyed them all. == List of other Star Destroyers ==

• Victory Star Destroyer: The Victory-class Star Destroyer originally featured only in Star Wars Legends novellas (see below). It first appeared in the new Star Wars canon in the 2014 novel Tarkin, written by James Luceno, and was first depicted in Darth Vader 6: Vader, Part VI, a 2015 comic book written by Kieron Gillen and illustrated by Salvador Larroca. The Victory Star Destroyer is the Imperial Navy's starting vessel in the core set of Fantasy Flight Games's Star Wars: Armada, a table top miniatures game released on March 27, 2015. The Victory I-class was plagued with many issues that it developed a negative reception in the Republic Navy and the succeeding Imperial Navy. A retrofitting program under the Empire upgraded existing Victory I Star Destroyers into the Victory II-class in an attempt to address its flaws, but many still remained. • Interdictor Star Destroyer - The Interdictor-class Star Destroyer was first introduced in Legends before being introduced in canon in Vader Immortal: A Star Wars VR Series. This variant is a derivative of the Imperial-class Star Destroyer as well as the successor to the Interdictor-class heavy cruiser. The Interdictor-class was equipped with four spheroidal gravity well projectors that were used to prevent ships from jumping into hyperspace, as well as forcibly removing ships from it. == Star Wars Legends ==

In April 2014, most of the licensed Star Wars novels, games, and comics produced since 1976 (and prior to 2014), were rebranded by Lucasfilm as Star Wars Legends; and therefore declared non-canon to the franchise. Star Destroyers feature in numerous Legends publications, with a considerable amount of additional notable information. According to West End Games' Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game sourcebooks and other texts, Imperial-class Star Destroyers are constructed by Kuat Drive Yards and hold a distinguished place in the Imperial Navy, symbolizing the Empire's military might with a peak number of more than 25,000 vessels. Like the Venator and Victory-class ships that precede it, the Imperial-class is a multi-role capital ship combining the roles of a battleship, starfighter carrier, and troopship. Notable for its massive size and overwhelming firepower compared to its fore-bearers; a single Imperial-class ship is capable of singlehandedly taking on a fleet of enemy vessels or "reducing the surface of a planet to a slag" (known as "Base Delta Zero"), and its mere presence is often enough to deter rebellion. Although the New Republic eventually upgrades its starfleet with newer ship types, the Imperial-class Star Destroyer remains in service well into the New Jedi Order era and fights during the Yuuzhan Vong War. Described in A Guide to the Star Wars Universe (1984) as being long, Executor-class Super Star Destroyers were later described as being long. In addition to Vader's command ship Executor, Star Wars novels introduce the prison ship Lusankya and stealth-armored Knight Hammer as other in the class. The Forces of Corruption expansion pack to the game Star Wars: Empire at War introduced the Aggressor-class Star Destroyer. Its plans were kept aboard the first Death Star, where they were studied along with other ship designs. Following the Battle of Yavin, the Zann Consortium stole the designs stored in a data pod amidst the wreckage of the battle station, as well as a prototype that Tyber Zann took as his flagship and christened the Merciless, which was heavily modified over three years before being unveiled over Carida. The Aggressor-class featured a bridge and shield generators similar to the Imperial-class, as well as two fire-linked cannons fixed on its forward hull that fired an ion blast that disabled shields, followed by a plasma blast for maximum damage. The description "Star Destroyer" and "Super Star Destroyer" are applied to several another massive dagger/triangle-shaped warships in Star Wars, such as the Pellaeon-class Star Destroyer in the Legacy comic series (2006–2010), and the reborn Emperor Palpatine's flagships Eclipse and Eclipse II Super Star Destroyers in the Dark Empire series (1991–1995). The Eclipse-class was perhaps the ultimate Super Star Destroyer or Star Dreadnought in the Expanded Universe, incorporating a Death Star-type superlaser but miniaturized and more advanced, and gravity well projectors to prevent enemies from jumping to hyperspace, and having strong enough shields/armor to be able to ram enemy vessels. Curtis Saxton, in the unofficial Star Wars Technical Commentaries (he has since been the author of the official Star Wars: Attack of the Clones Incredible Cross-Sections and Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith Incredible Cross-Sections), has advocated using the term Imperator-class in lieu of Imperial-class. Saxton argues that "Imperial Star Destroyer" is a somewhat generic term, as the vast majority of Star Destroyer types are operated by the Galactic Empire's Imperial Navy which technically means they are all "Imperial Star Destroyers", although the Imperator/Imperial-class Star Destroyers are by far the most common type. Similarly, the "Super Star Destroyer" moniker has been used for numerous unrelated vessels of varying sizes and classes, so fans have suggested labeling the class instead of by the lead ship such as Executor-class and Eclipse-class, with some referring to them instead as a "Star Dreadnought" (sometimes spelled "Star Dreadnaught") to emphasize their massive size relative to Star Destroyers. Author Jason Fry introduced the "Anaxes War College System" which specifically divide warships into different types depending on their size and power, which explain all the differently sized "Super Star Destroyers" appearing in the Expanded Universe (now Star Wars Legends), supplementing the contradictory classification systems used in Star Wars lore previously, becoming reference material in the Star Wars Sourcebooks by West End Games. The Victory-class Star Destroyer first described in the early Star Wars novella, was initially designed as a direct predecessor to the Imperial-class during the development of A New Hope, which would make it a follow-up to the Venator-class seen in Revenge of the Sith. The Victory appears very similar in appearance to the Imperial-class which succeeded it; albeit the Victory being considerably smaller in scale (900 meters in length versus 1600 meters), adds atmospheric maneuvering "wings" on the port and starboard sides (according to Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game sourcebooks, the Victory I-class can enter a planetary atmosphere which is a unique attribute not found in the Victory II and Imperial-class Star Destroyers), and a shorter conning tower with different elements on the command bridge. The Victory-class was developed from a prototype Star Destroyer model created by Colin Cantwell for A New Hope, with the final design being used for the basis of the Imperial-class. ==See also==