A swarm of spider droids crawls through a golden surface. As the camera pans out, it's revealed that those are actually parts of but one of many layers that, put together, will make the dish of Star Wars' signature planet-killing weapon, the Death Star. This description is, actually, of the post-credits scene in the first season of Andor, showing another step in the huge process that was the construction of the Empire's super weapon. The series is one of the many works in the franchise that uses this moment in galactic history as background, but isn't there another Death Star?
Interestingly enough, yes, there is. One that's actually bigger, too. While the first Death Star was the main technological terror of A New Hope and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, so far we got zero works and projects in development that tackle the construction of its younger sister. We first hear about it in Return of the Jedi's opening scene, but learn a little bit more when Mon Mothma (then played by Caroline Blakiston) explains that it was discovered and its blueprints stolen by "many Bothan spies" during the briefing before the Battle of Endor. But if its construction process was anything like the first one, it should already be in progress. So let's gather all our knowledge about it, shall we?
From Project Stardust to a Planet-Killing Spree
Given what is shown in Andor's post-credits scene, the first Death Star is nearly finished, which would conclude Project Stardust. The sequence shows the making of its infamous dish, the part that actually fires its super laser. If we look thoroughly, there are also a few spots around the dish socket that have yet to be built, but the super weapon is mostly done. By all means, there should even be a fully functioning crew and other kinds of Imperial personnel aboard by now.
Project Stardust is perhaps one of the most secretive in the Empire - so much so that it even left behind a trail of dead bodies for those who worked on it and were disposable to the regime, and also a planet-wide genocide of the Geonosian species. The weapon itself was designed much earlier, though, still during the Clone Wars, as shown in Attack of the Clones. Since then, the project was conducted by Count Dooku (Christopher Lee), Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn), and, finally, Grand Moff Willhuf Tarkin (Peter Cushing).
So that gives us a time span of roughly 23 years from its first appearance (although its inception may have happened way earlier) to its completion in A New Hope (as it was not officially operational by Rogue One, yet). That's a lot of time. We even saw an outline of the Death Star itself at the end of Revenge of the Sith, almost as if confirming it was already in active development by then. This "skeleton" also shows the dish being built along with the main sphere, but it could well be something else entirely, maybe a protection so as not to leave the socket open. How come the Empire was able to build another Death Star so quickly, then? Let's have a look at all we know so far.
What's the Timeline of the Creation of Death Star 2?
The Dark Side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural, as Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) constantly makes a point of reminding us. That may be true for him and the Sith, but for regular working people, especially construction workers in outer space, not so much, it seems.
The Empire does make use of slave labor in facilities such as the Narkina 5 complex and in many others throughout the galaxy, but it still wouldn't be enough to build a Death Star from scratch so quickly, let alone a bigger one, especially considering that there are four years between A New Hope and Return of the Jedi. And in fact, even Palpatine's Sith Eternal fleet, the one we see in The Rise of Skywalker, was in construction decades before it was deployed, as depicted in Greg Pak's great run on the Darth Vader comics by Marvel.
The first we actually see Death Star 2, Darth Vader (James Earl Jones) is paying a visit to the battle station to bring a little extra motivation to Moff Jerjerrod (Michael Pennington), who was supervising the construction. He makes an appeal to the Sith Lord and claims that he needs more men to have it ready and operational in time, making evident the gargantuan task at hand. Four years are just not enough for it, so the only possibility is that it was in construction already before that, maybe even simultaneously as its older and smaller sister.
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Will We See the Second Death Star in Andor?
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem likely that we'll get to see the second Death Star make an appearance in Andor in any shape of form, especially given that the series acts as a prequel for Rogue One, a highly Death-Star-1-centered movie. Perhaps a mention, a reference, but a cohesive arc must be kept, so it's very difficult.
But there is an opening in the current Star Wars canon for the Death Star 2 to be introduced. The novel Lost Stars, by Claudia Gray, helped establish the new canon in its early days, all the while telling a compelling love story between two people fighting on opposite sides of the Galactic Civil War. One of those is Imperial officer Ciena Rhee, one of the best characters in the franchise in its current state. The story takes place in parallel to the events of the Original Trilogy, and we get to see many important events through completely different points of view, even the Battle of Endor, the one that happens in Return of the Jedi.
Towards the end of the novel, Ciena is transferred to a new station, and panics when she discovers that it's actually a second Death Star. She was aboard the first one and very narrowly escaped death at the Battle of Yavin, but she also witnessed its planet-killing powers firsthand, when it destroyed Alderaan. Despite being an Imperial officer, Ciena is definitely a good person, which justifies her panic as she never thought anyone would be evil enough to try building another Death Star. But history has a way of repeating itself, especially in galaxies far, far away.
When the battle above Endor starts, it's interesting to note the rebels' reaction to seeing this new and bigger weapon in person, too - something that might give us a clue as to how we can expect to learn more about it. The Rebel Fleet planned its whole attack and operation under the assumption that the new Death Star would not be operational when the battle took place, and they were taken by surprise when it actually fired at a Mon Calamari cruiser.
This shows just how little the rebels really knew about Death Stars in general. As the audience, we know from Andor and Rogue One that, ideally, the dish should be the final component added to the superstructure. We also know that Cassian Andor's (Diego Luna) intelligence efforts and the plans from Project Stardust stolen from the Imperial Base on Scarif apparently don't cover that much of its structure (or maybe the rebels were too focused on finding the weakness left by Galen Erso, played by Mads Mikkelsen, that they overlooked this). If the dish was the last part for it to be fully operational, of course, the Death Star 2 could fire when the Battle of Endor started, showing just how rushed the whole construction process was. But, unless we get something like "Bothan Spies: A Star Wars Story", we're not likely to have that confirmation anytime soon.
