2023 HAWAII WILDFIRES — MAUI

1983

ECOCIDE
noun
destruction of the natural environment,
especially when deliberate.

2023 HAWAII WILDFIRES

(Directed-Energy Warfare)

Star Wars:
Return of the Jedi (1983)

(Death Star II Superlaser)

(Original Image)

The Official Story

DS-2 DEATH STAR II MOBILE BATTLE STATION
(Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, 1983)

The DS-2 Death Star II Mobile Battle Station, codenamed Second Sun, also known as the Death Star MK. 2, the Death Star Mark 2, or simply the second Death Star, was a partially completed moon-sized battle station constructed by the Galactic Empire as the successor to the first Death Star. A larger and more powerful Death Star, the second Death Star’s long-term purpose was similar to the first: to terrorize planets and star systems in league with the Rebel Alliance through the use of its planet-destroying superlaser. However, the Death Star II also served another purpose: luring the Rebels into a battle that would, the Empire hoped, destroy them once and for all. Though designed in the likeness of its predecessor’s appearance and function, the DS-2 Death Star saw a technical improvement through the incorporation of millions of millimeter-sized heat-dispersion tubes in place of the two-meter-wide thermal exhaust port exploited by the Rebel Alliance at the Battle of Yavin.

Secretly constructed in orbit around the remote forest moon of Endor, the Death Star II was larger than its 160-kilometer-wide predecessor and was constructed using more efficient methods. Positioned in synchronous orbit above Endor, the battle station was protected by a deflector shield projected by a ground-based shield generator, which used so much power that it was slowly destroying Endor. With the superlaser being the main priority, the weapon was completed by 4 ABY while the rest of the superstructure was still under construction. After the Empire secretly leaked the location of the “incomplete” second Death Star to Bothan spies working for the Rebellion, the Alliance Fleet arrived at Endor and were shocked to find the superlaser fully operational. In the ensuing battle, Rebel ground forces managed to destroy the shield generator protecting the Death Star, allowing Rebel starships to infiltrate the battle station’s reactor core and destroy the station. Combined with the deaths of Darth Sidious and his apprentice, the Sith Lord Darth Vader, the destruction of the second Death Star was a significant defeat for the Empire. Within a year, the fractured Empire formally surrendered to the Rebellion’s recently introduced government, the New Republic. Some of what little remained of the battle station fell on the waters of the ocean moon of Kef Bir.

Armaments

The most prominent weapon on the Death Star II was its immense superlaser, which was located above the equatorial trench in the station’s northern hemisphere and was visually identical to that of the first Death Star. Powered directly by the station’s hypermatter reactor, energy was passed through an array of massive kyber crystals, forming a series of powerful laser beams. The eight tributary lasers were then converged by the superlaser’s exposed concave focusing dish into a single destructive beam. Unlike the previous Death Star’s eight equal sized tributary beams surrounding the dish, the Second Death Star’s laser consisted of seven smaller equal sized beams circling the dish and one larger beam located in the center. An improvement on that of the first Death Star, the redesigned superlaser required mere minutes—as opposed to hours—to recharge, and could be focused more finely, allowing it to fire at moving targets such as capital ships. Like the original superlaser, the power of the Death Star II’s superlaser could be controlled. Though its main purpose was the destruction of planets, the laser could be tuned to a much lower power setting, suitable for destroying individual spacecraft.

Source

Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (1983)
– Space Battle of Endor

DEATH STAR SUPERLASER

Superlasers were laser-based superweapons. The primary weapon of the Death Star battle stations, a superlaser could destroy entire planets in one blast.

Second Death Star

A second generation superlaser was installed aboard the second Death Star. This unit featured across-the-board improvements from the first generation unit. The targeting system was greatly improved, giving the system the ability to hit individual capital ships, and the power regulation was revamped, giving it the capability to fire with enough force to destroy any capital ship in a single hit, while recharging for another similar-strength shot in only 3 minutes. The full-power recycle was also improved, shaving the time between shots from almost a day to only 5 hours.

A trap was set for the rebellion by spreading false intelligence that the superlaser was not operational, only to use the in-fact perfectly functional weapon against several rebel capital ships at the Battle of Endor. Because the Second Death Star was destroyed before completion during that battle, its superlaser was never fired at full power.

Source