History Literature / DeathStar

*** A number of the events of the novel were lifted straight from ''VideoGame/XWing'', most notably the destruction of [[spoiler:Despayre]] and the planting of a bomb on one of the Star Destroyers guarding the construction site.

Interestingly, there is no overall villain of the book. The Rebellion is certainly out there, weighing on people's minds, but aside from the minor role that Leia Organa plays, none of them are named or given much notoriety, much less become a viewpoint character. Some characters oppose each other--Motti does not like Vader, for instance--but until the end most of them are at least somewhat civil with each other. They're all more or less on the same side, after all.

''Death Star''[[note]][[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Death_Star_%28novel%29 Wookieepedia]][[/note]] is a novel in the Franchise/StarWarsLegends continuity, written by Michael Reaves and Creator/StevePerry and published in 2007. Perry also wrote ''Literature/ShadowsOfTheEmpire''. Reaves wrote a few episodes of the old ''WesternAnimation/{{Droids}}'' and ''WesternAnimation/{{Ewoks}}'' television shows, as well as ''Literature/DarthMaulShadowHunter'' and the ''Literature/CoruscantNights'' trilogy. Prior to ''Death Star'', the two authors worked together to write the ''[=MedStar=]'' books, ''Battle Surgeons'' and ''Jedi Healer''. They re-use characters and details from their previous works with some regularity.

* FelonyMisdemeanor: Dr. Uli ends up the target of a criminal probe when he requests medical information on midi-chlorians while treating Nova Stihl for mysterious injuries after Alderaan is blown up, after noticing the stormtrooper has a higher-than-normal number of them. It's an act of pure medical desperation that could end up getting doctor and patient both executed. [[spoiler:Nothing comes of it because Uli escapes with the other defectors during the Battle of Yavin, before the investigation can conclude, and Nova dies covering their escape.]]

* JustFollowingOrders: Averted. All the Imperial characters with a talking part are either [[ColonelKilgore ruthless tyrants]] or morally sensitive people who [[DefectorFromDecadence join the Rebels]] after they see the Death Star in action.

* MenAreTheExpendableGender: Thirteen characters in the dramatis personae (ten male, three female). [[spoiler:Three males and three females]] survive. Admittedly, some characters are DoomedByCanon--or saved by it in the case of Darth Vader and Admiral Daala--but even among the 'new' characters the male death rate is [[spoiler: 60%]].

** After her cantina on Coruscant is burned down in suspicious circumstances--she assumes insurance fraud but it's very heavily implied to be the work of Imperials--Memah is given the opportunity to start a new one on a "military installation" and accepts the job, thinking that it's probably going to be safer. On approach to the half-built Death Star she remembers this thought and says the trope name to herself--surely something this big is going to be safe from attack. It's a ForegoneConclusion that her new bar will be destroyed too, along with the rest of the Death Star, but by then Memah does not mind in the least.

** After the destruction of Alderaan, Tenn Graneet ruefully compares himself to famous mass-murderers, including [[Film/RevengeOfTheSith General Grievous]] and [[Literature/TalesFromTheMosEisleyCantina the Butcher of Montellian Serat]]. None of ''them'' ever killed over a billion people with one pull of a lever.

** Atour, after Despayre, becomes depressed and unsettled and thinks "Build a blaster that could destroy a planet, and some bigger fool would build one that could extinguish a star. It would go on, insanity without end, because there's always a bigger blaster." The ''Literature/JediAcademyTrilogy'' does in fact involve a superweapon that forces suns to go nova, and parts of the StarWarsLegends canon ''are'' infamous for superweapon escalation.

* AnnoyingPatient: Several of Uli's patients clearly don't want to be there, an ill Wookiee and a healthy Memah included. Uli himself also doesn't want to be there and is pretty burned out. He takes the Wookiee's sarcasm as a positive, a sign of a will to live, and finds Memah's complaint that her examination is "two hours of my life I'll never get back" funny.

* MoralEventHorizon: InUniverse. Tenn Graneet, the main Death Star gunner, sees his involvement in the destruction of Alderaan as this, and he realizes that the rest of the Galaxy will also see it like that.

* NeutralNoLonger: Most of the cast to some extent, but especially the historian. Atour's long life has been spent politically neutral, until the horror of Alderaan jars him into opposition. He immediately goes to work researching blueprints looking for weak points, and later devises a plan to allow himself and some other like-minded characters to desert the Death Star.

* ResignationsNotAccepted: Doctor Kornell "Uli" Divini has been in Imperial service since before Palpatine's New Order, due to the Imperial Military Stop Loss Order, or IMSLO. He's too valuable to the war effort to have any say in when he gets discharged.

* SheIsNotMyGirlfriend: A sort of odd example. Uli often thinks back to the young Jedi he knew twenty years ago during the Clone Wars, who died in Order 66, Barris Offee. He's not sure if he loved her, but her death left him badly shaken, and he tries not to think of her too often. When Princess Leia is taken on board the Death Star and tortured, he's summoned to tend to her and is struck by the various ways in which she's like Barris. Later his friends refer to Leia as Uli's girlfriend, and he tiredly says the trope name.

* DelayedDiagnosis: Uli's asked if he can help with Nova's intense and terrible dreams but scans and an examination prove that the only physical abnormality he has is a higher than average midichlorian count. Data on midichlorians is heavily restricted under the Empire but Uli makes a request anyway... and gets in trouble for it later, at the exact worst moment.

* AnnoyingPatient: Several of Uli's patients clearly don't want to be there, an ill Wookie and a healthy Memah included. Uli himself also doesn't want to be there and is pretty burned out. He takes the Wookie's sarcasm as a positive, a sign of a will to live, and finds Memah's complaint that her examination is "two hours of my life I'll never get back" funny.

* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: Tenn Graneet calls it by name.

** After her cantina on Coruscant is burned down in suspicious circumstances - she assumes insurance fraud but it's very heavily implied to be the work of Imperials - Memah is given the opportunity to start a new one on a "military installation" and accepts the job, thinking that it's probably going to be safer. On approach to the half-built Death Star she remembers this thought and says the trope name to herself - surely something this big is going to be safe from attack. It's a ForegoneConclusion that her new bar will be destroyed too, along with the rest of the Death Star, but by then Memah does not mind in the least.

* BigBrotherIsEmployingYou: Some of the cast is Imperial military, but plenty of the rest are just trying to keep themselves fed and clothed and range from indifferent to the Empire to disliking it but not seeing better options. Teela was sentenced to life on Despayre for backing a political candidate who the Empire didn't like, and facing the choice between continuing to starve and risk violence on the penal colony or to use her architecture skills to work on the Death Star in much more favorable conditions, she chose the latter. Living on the station as it's being constructed isn't bad but several characters feel twinges of conscience, which intensify dramatically as it becomes operational.

* HeroOfAnotherStory: Leia really only appears a few times, and most of that is rendering events of A New Hope from Vader or Tarkin's perspective, but she makes a very strong impression on Uli Divini, whose cynical, defeatist neutrality is [[NeutralNoLonger rattled and overturned]] in two short conversations with her. Her defiance as a captured daughter of Alderaan, of course, also results in her homeworld being chosen for mundicide, which horrifies every character with a functioning conscience.

** A couple of surgeon specific ones, "When the only tool you have is a knife, everything looks like a steak" and "You cut it, you take care of it."

--> "That's the government - everything and everyone gets shunted through the Department of Redundancy Department."

* ShootTheBuilder: Palpatine and his minions do this on a ''planetary'' scale. Grand Moff Tarkin uses convict laborers from the prison planet [[MeaningfulName Despayre]] for the final stage of the Death Star's construction. Then he blows up the entire planet to test the space station's super laser. The only survivors are a few engineers deemed valuable enough to spare for additional work and a man who stows away on a supply vessel returning to the Death Star.

--> There was an old proverb his grandfather had taught him when he'd been a boy: ''Take care what you wish for, Tenn--you might get it.''\\

* RedBaron: Col. Vindoo "The Shooter" Barvel, hero of the Clone Wars and one of the Empire's best pilots. Vil saw Vader [[ImprobablePilotingSkills easily shoot him down]] in training once.

* DrowningMySorrows: After Alderaan is destroyed, two Alderaanian contractors are seen in Memah's bar, mostly just staring into space. When a trooper loudly voices his opinion that the planet's death was a good thing, one of them, half the trooper's size, gets up and [[TalkToTheFist decks him to the floor]]. Memah not only doesn't kick the Alderaanians out, she puts their tab on the house.

* JediMindTrick: A young Imperial officer, having heard of (or perhaps witnessed) how [[YouHaveFailedMe choke happy]] Darth Vader can be, is absolutely terrified to deliver a report to Vader. While in most cases Vader doesn't mind if people are extremely afraid of him, at times the amount of fear he causes interferes with efficiency. Vader uses a mind trick to get the officer to calm down enough to deliver his report.

* JediMindTrick: A young Imperial officer, having heard of or perhaps having witnessed how [[YouHaveFailedMe choke happy]] Darth Vader could be was absolutely terrified to deliver a report to Vader. While in most cases Vader didn't mind if people were extremely afraid of him, at times Vader thought the amount of fear he caused interfered with efficiency. Vader uses a mind trick to get the officer to calm down enough to deliver his report.

* WouldntHurtAChild: Nova Stihl is badly shaken after Alderaan, the deaths of billions of innocent civilians of all ages, enough so that he concludes he has to try to prevent something like that from happening again.