Death Star
The first Death Star is depicted in various sources of having a crew of 265,675, as well as 52,276 gunners, 607,360 troops, 30,984 stormtroopers, 42,782 ship support staff, and 180,216 pilots and support crew. Its hangars contain assault shuttles, blastboats, Strike cruisers, land vehicles, support ships, and 7,293 TIE fighters. It is also protected by 10,000 turbolaser batteries, 2,600 ion cannons, and at least 768 tractor beam projectors. Various sources state the first Death Star has a diameter of between 140 and 160 kilometers. There is a broader range of figures for the second Death Star's diameter, ranging from 160 to 900 kilometers.
Death Star
"" features Starkiller Base, a planet converted into a superweapon built by the First Order. Significantly larger than either the first or second Death Star, and unlike either of those cost-prohibitive space stations, this superweapon cut-costs by terraforming an existing planet and draws its fire power directly from a sun (by extracting a kind of Dark Energy called Quintessence and turning it into another type of dark energy called Phantom Energy), but it requires time to draw enough energy. Once fired, it has the power to destroy up to five planets within the same star system simultaneously, making it a far deadlier superweapon than the Death Star. General Hux gave an intense speech while Starkiller Base demonstrated its lethality by obliterating the five planets of the Hosnian Prime system (the location of the Republic government, which rotates every few years), the cataclysm witnessed by Han Solo, Chewbacca, Rey and Finn from Maz Kanata's castle. After Rey was captured by Kylo Ren, he interrogated her within the base. Han, Chewbacca and Finn approached the base at light-speed because the Starkiller's shield kept out anything going under the speed of light. They found Rey and successfully lowered the protective shields, enabling an X-wing assault led by Poe Dameron and Nien Numb to destroy the planet-converted superweapon, with Poe firing the crucial, destructive shots. The name Starkiller Base paid homage to the early drafts of the original Star Wars film, referring to Luke Skywalker's original name as Luke Starkiller.