Thanks y'all. I'm in my end-of-story writing mode, so yeah. TJ, you are of course correct, though I admit a lot of that is entirely accidental. When I wrote that chapter I was mostly thinking of your #4.

Chapter 19

Excerpt from a Republic political report

… and with the suspension of search operations for the Outbound Flight, there is little incentive for our limited assets to continue probing deeper into the Unknown Regions beyond securing a 'tripwire'-type sensor perimeter around Weitun.

To that end we have begun stationing autonomous sensor stations in the surrounding systems that will give us some forewarning, However, due to technological limitations and our need to keep any transmission be very low-signature, this forewarning will not give us a very long response time. It is also dependent on any Imperial attack force using the surrounding systems as a staging area.

However, once the refit of Fearless is complete, even a limited exploration of the deeper space beyond Weitun should be conducted, if only to confirm the political borders of the Chiss Ascendancy and to seek, as suggested by Senator Skywalker prior to her departure for Tatooine, some sort of political accommodation with them.

For this the primary motivator would be to prevent possible Chiss knowledge of our location from spreading to Imperial Intelligence.

Section 15 Further Operations towards Core Worlds

Future military operations against the Imperial position in the Outer Rim are of the highest importance, especially with the probable absence of our strongest warship for what could be two standard years. However, the suggested 'subversion campaign' towards Coruscant is not going to be implemented beyond the Droid espionage programme. Republic Naval Intelligence has started implementation of said programme and a full and detailed review can be found in Appendix 15/1, so here only a broad overview of our most recent efforts in that area will be provided.

15.1 Droid Infiltration

1) At the present time our stocks of infiltration droids are severely limited. However, RNI has managed to infiltrate several of the first production models into the Imperial supply system and expects first results to become available within the next four or five standard weeks.

2) Future planning, depending on available stocks of infiltration droids, is to concentrate the first wave of droids in the core worlds, mostly because here the chance is greatest to capture relevant data from suitably high-ranking Imperial officials. As has been stated in RNI's initial report about the programme the chance is great that much of the data collected is not as useful as we might anticipate.

15.2 Expansion of and alliance with existing Rebel cells

Expansion of existing cells of rebel elements aligned with the Republic continues on most worlds. However, due to the nature of a cell-based organization and the ruthless nature of Imperial counter-efforts this continues at a slow pace. To take an example, efforts at spreading Republic influence among the disaffected elements on Toprawa has not been met by success because the local Imperial garrison managed to destroy several of our cells on that world. Investigation into the reasons for this is still ongoing, but the disaster has definitely hampered our efforts there. (For current stand on Toprawa investigation, see Appendix 15/2.1.

The easiest way to expand Republic influence is to continue our outreach to existing local groups. Details on our efforts in this area are of course highly confidential and restricted to the Republic and Jedi Councils, but it is within the scope of this report to give a general overview of the situation. However, expansion efforts here continue.
It can be said that most of the significant worlds of the Outer Rim where it faces the Unknown Regions where Rebel cells already exist have aligned themselves with the Republic to varying extents. Some have submitted themselves to Republic command and oversight, while others have 'merely' sought an alliance with us in exchange for military and logistical assistance from us. While this will definitely create problems when we manage to defeat the Empire, at the present time it is suitable and fits our needs.

15.3 Raising and training of new cells

Where no cells already exist or where Imperial counter-efforts have proven to be unusually effective, the raising of new cells is generally our primary efforts. However, the sheer size of the galaxy and our finite resources in both suitable trainers and material to arm those cells with severely limits our reach in this area.

Therefore it has been decided that our effort should be concentrated on strategically important worlds where enough unrest already exists that would allow us to form active cells with relative ease. As with training efforts with existing cells, the actual details are highly confidential.

Excerpt from a highly confidential Imperial intelligence report sent to Director Isard

… finished, and yet, the building site shows only very limited activity that isn't planetbound. Most activity at the construction site limits itself to maintaining the work that had already been done.

The prison camp has been established and movement of additional workforce has begun. However, the camp must still be guarded against periodic attack by the aboriginal population of the moon.

To summarize, I found the situation in the Endor system to be more or less on schedule again by the time I left.

During transit to the Maw Installation, I have already submitted a list of arrests that needed to be made, and by the time you receive this report, they should have been carried out.

It must be said that Governor Tarkin has chosen the location well. Approaching it is incredibly difficult even if the pilot of the ship has made the run before and explains the number of ships lost during construction of the facility. In the end the tradeoffs are worth it when one considers that it is next to impossible for anyone not already aware of it to find the facility.

Several of the larger research and development labs have already commenced work, especially the labs involving the engineering challenges presented by this project. As I have already stated in my previous report, the suggestions regarding the heat venting of the main reactor have already been passed on and a grate dense enough to prematurely detonate any incoming projectile has been added to the already projected ray-shielding of any and all heat vents directly connected to the main reactor.

While the chance of anyone traversing the trench, avoiding massive defences both fixed and from the station's starfighter complement before making a shot against a target that's not even two metres wide even with computer assistance is so remote as to be considered non-existent, random chance is a factor that needs to be considered. Governor Tarkin unfortunately failed to do so.

On a slightly more personal note, Tarkin does not like to be corrected about anything.

At any rate, the primary issue with construction of the DS-1 is power supply. The station is among the largest artificial constructs ever constructed, the basic principles behind constructing spherical space stations is fairly well understood. The issue here is that scaling up Imperial and Separatist experience with constructing large spherical objects has proven to be surprisingly difficult. The initial idea of constructing the station in 'slices' and so slowly create the spherical form has proven to be unfeasible due to the structural nature of the reactor chamber.

However, this has been turned into a virtue, because at present the plan is to construct the reactor chamber first, and then expand the bare support structure around it until the basic framework of the station has reached the desired size.

Ironically the by far biggest problem is power supply. Generating the power required for the proposed super-laser is an engineering challenge almost as great as the rest of the station. The problem is not so much how to generate the power since hypermatter reactors of the size required are deemed possible, but more that it is unclear how to control a reactor of that side. If said reactor were to have a runaway reaction, it would be essentially unstoppable and destroy the station.

Once again, Governor Tarkin has taken steps to solve that problem, but it will be at least four or five years before any permanent solution can be found. Once again the primary issue is the sheer size of the project.

Unfortunately, I am unable to give you anything more than a guess on a completion date.

What I can do however is point out that in my preliminary estimation, the chances for success without any sort of significant delay occurring is close to zero.

The chance of the project overall being successful is somewhat higher, though still not close to certain. In Governor Tarkin's own estimation the chances are near certain. While I consider that to be very optimistic with a figure of fifty being the upper limit of what I consider realistic, his confidence in the project bodes well for the future.

2.0

Director, you asked me to give you my input on how to best reveal the station to the general public should that become necessary. When I voiced those concerns to Governor Tarkin, he dismissed them out of hand, claiming that not only would the station be the ultimate power in the galaxy, intimidate rebellious elements through sheer fear of it's power and because of that not need any sort of 'propaganda screen' as he put it.

Once more I must point out that while Tarkin is an excellent administrator for this project, he should not be given ultimate command, as the order for the propaganda screen was issued by the Emperor himself which should be enough for Tarkin to be convinced of the need for it. While this needs to be kept in mind, at present I recommend no unusual activity beyond monitoring his communications in a suitably circumspect manner.

To return to my initial task, the issue once again comes down to size. To give an example, a wartime separatist battlesphere could be easily disguised as any number of civilian applications, but a battlestation the size of a small moon with the largest laser cannon yet constructed is hard to disguise as a 'weather research station' or 'planetary traffic control', just to use a few wartime examples.

Suggestions have been made from various quarters, with several proposals being listed in Appendix 2, though I have to admit that it remains debatable how serious some of those proposals can be taken. For instance no one would take believe a claim that the station was made of cheese and acted as a planetary food reserve or that two round ears should be added and that the station would then act as a space-borne commercial for a certain fictional rodent from the entertainment industry.

More serious proposals include actually making it appear like a moon and disguising it as a small orphan planet, painting it the 'general background of space' so that it would not be seen to begin with or stating that it was a planetary ore extractor used to break up uninhabited planetary bodies for the ores contained in their crust and cores.

My recommendations are collected in Appendix 2.1.

In any event I feel it is my duty to point out that any sort of excuse or disguise for the finished product will not be needed for a number of years, so if the Emperor so chooses he can of course put off any decision until the project was actually successful.

Generally it must also be said that...

tbc

Turns out, five chapters was a bit optimistic in the sense of what I wanted to say for the remainder of this Episode. Next one is going to be the Epilogue. For instance, both parts of this were supposed to be their own chapters, but wouldn't fill up more than a single page each, even though I tried hard.

To add to the pile of things to rant about in the prequels is that the Death Star seems to be damn near done in ROTS, which makes me ask how the hell it still took them twenty years to bolt on some hull elements... Which is why I am hereby head-canoning it as that taking lace an xy number of years later.