The science and engineering has been done, the necessary factories were built, and since the first Death Star was destroyed after completion, those that would be overseeing and building were all safely away. For comparison: the first atomic bomb took years to build, the second took significantly less time.
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.
The Death Star's construction took much longer than portrayed in the Star Wars films, with over 20 years spent on perfecting the superlaser. The development of the superlaser, built using kyber crystals, was the most complicated and time-consuming aspect of the Death Star's completion.
It was two-three times larger than DS1 and took far more materials to build it. Sid also wanted it to look unfinished so he could lure the Rebels in: “it's a trap!” But he ensured the planet killer gun was operational by sending Vader in to oversee it.
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.
Why Sidious Was Able to Build the Second Death Star So Quickly
Was the second Death Star smaller?
The size of the second Death Star has not remained consistent among the various writers for the Star Wars franchise, with some stating it shared the first Death Star's 160-kilometre (99 mi) radius and others claiming it was much more massive with a 900-kilometre (560 mi) radius.
For other uses, see Death Star (disambiguation). The Death Star III, also known as the third Death Star, was a mock Death Star battle station created from an incomplete worldcraft by the Kaarenth Dissension.
Some Expanded Universe sources state much smaller figures—120 kilometers for the first Death Star and 160 kilometers for the second—however, most of the evidence argues for the larger sizes.
Is the Death Star more powerful than Starkiller Base?
The answer to this question will come down to each person's individual preference for the functionality of a sci-fi super weapon. If one considers the sheer might of the Starkiller Base and nothing else, then it is clear that the Starkiller Base is the better of the two.
Out of the 2 billion inhabitants on Alderaan - with the modern-day populations of China and India having about 2.8 billion people combined - about 60,000 survived the destruction of the planet due to being outside of its star system at the time.
And how long would it even take to build? On to the subject of materials, it's estimated that it would take 830,000 years at current global output levels to produce the amount of steel needed for just the superstructure of the Death Star.
Firstly, we cannot build structures that big. The nascent Death Star would warp and deform before it reached any appreciable fraction of its projected size. We do not have the orbital lifting capability to get sufficient mass into space. We don't have the logistical capability to build something of that size.
But what made the Death Star particularly menacing was its ability to travel through hyperspace. Not only was it equipped with destructive armaments, it could pursue its prey with those armaments.
But taking all these sources into account, the death toll of the first Death Star can be left as around 1.1 million and the one of the second Death Star as over two million, which is still a lot even for Star Wars – more so considering that this happened in the first three films of the franchise.
What is the difference between the Death Star 1 and 2?
The improved superlaser was able to focus much more precisely, allowing for reliable strikes against starship-sized targets, as the Rebel Alliance was shocked to discover during the Battle of Endor. This weapon could also be recharged much more quickly than that of the first Death Star.
Galen Marek, better known as Starkiller, was the main protagonist of the Legends games before Disney bought Lucasfilm. He displayed incredible control of the Force, from moving a Star Destroyer to defeating both Vader and Palpatine in succession.
It's a common misconception that 17 year-old Starkiller/Galen Marrek was MORE powerful than Darth Vader. He wasn't. There were two big factors in Starkiller's victory against Vader: He was his teacher.
In the Star Wars: Bloodline novel, it's said that "nearly one and a half million" people died; although many of the accounts seem to be influenced by Imperial propaganda, as other novels like Star Wars: Lost Stars have characters claim the deaths were under one million, and others say it was close to two million.
Like its immediate predecessor, the Death Star III would be approximately 900 kilometers in diameter, made of quadanium steel, and equally divided into two hemispheres, themselves each subdivided into twelve zones.
The planet Ilum, once a safe-haven and sacred planet for the Jedi Order, was turned into a superweapon by the nefarious First Order. Starkiller Base, also called "the Starkiller," was a base located on the forested ice planet of Ilum rich in kyber crystals that was located in the Unknown Regions.
Star Wars: Rogue One revealed that the exhaust port weakness in the original Death Star was deliberately placed there by Galen Erso. But the second Death Star's weakness was that it was incomplete and not properly sealed up.
These ports drew excess heat energy away from the reactors and other equipment in a structure and expelled it into space or the atmosphere to prevent damage to systems or injury to the crew from heat build-up. Thermal exhaust ports were notoriously vulnerable to damage or sabotage.
