Mini Death Star

The Mini Death Star was a starfighter-sized ship created by the Geonosians in the planetary ring surrounding Geonosis. The Geonosians, planning to build their Ultimate Weapon, first had to create a scale prototype, approximately sixteen meters in diameter. When the Geonosians discovered how compact they could compress hypermatter for generating power using the design, they designed the ship to be able to carry a Geonosian pilot or a droid brain.

The ship was not well-armored, but its ray shields were more powerful than any other fighter its size. Its laser could also generate a beam with a sizable fraction of the Death Star's power, scaled down by size. This meant it could take on capital ships as effectively as a Star Destroyer, only as a much, much smaller target to shoot back at.

The vessel was not completed during the Clone Wars, but the project continued until Gizor Delso's rebellion in 11 BBY. After the droid army on Mustafar was destroyed, the Empire punished the Geonosians, taking over their workforce. The Geonosians were forced to shut down all their factories, though the Empire did not realize the stealth-equipped facilities in the asteroid field were producing miniature versions of their prized superweapon.

In 3 ABY, a small task force including Rogue Squadron was dispatched to Geonosis to investigate Sarkli's Imperial Escort Carrier, which had destroyed a Rebel transport during a rescue mission. Though Wedge Antilles was able to destroy Sarkli's ship, his own X-wing was caught in the explosion, and was sent careening to the surface of the planet. One of Sarkli's officers landed in an escape pod near an abandoned Imperial facility, which admitted him. Realizing that if he could use the facility to reactivate the droid army on Geonosis, he could turn the tide of the battle. Against Sarkli's orders, he used the code to activate the droids, which starting attacking the Imperials and Wedge Antilles. In addition, the secret facility in the asteroid field was reactivated, and the droid-operated Mini Death Stars came to life.

Soon after, a rescue force including Ace Squadron and the frigate Redemption materialized in the system, responding to the distress signal sent out by Rogue Squadron. The Mini Death Stars found the force and a squadron started attacking them. Ace Squadron struggled to destroy them at first, until one of them discovered that they could be destroyed in a single hit from a proton torpedo. Using this newfound knowledge, Ace Squadron managed to defeat the Mini Death Stars and deactivate the facility in the asteroid field before Wedge Antilles arrived in a Delta-7 Aethersprite-class starfighter.

After Rogue Squadron and Ace Squadron together defeated the remaining Imperial Escort Carriers, General Morgan sent a team of technicians to investigate the Mini Death Stars. The technicians were able to activate twelve of the remaining Mini Death Stars without triggering their intruder-alert circuits, which the Rebellion used to destroy an Imperial fleet later on. However, an Acclamator-II-class frigate managed to escape the Mini Death Stars, armed with information on their weakness. Because the Rebellion knew that the Empire would now be able to destroy the Mini Death Stars with ease, they programmed their autopilots to put the spheres on a suicide mission to dispose of them. However, the Mini Death Stars were each deactivated by the ion cannons from the TIE Defenders in Baron Squadron. The Empire then studied the Mini Death Stars and then proceeded to use them in a confrontation against Ace Squadron a year later. This mission was a failure because the Ace Squadron pilots knew of the Mini Death Stars' weakness, and used their proton torpedoes to destroy the last of them.

Behind the scenes
The Mini Death Star was created as a joke in Ace and Commander, but they were eventually included in the storyline in order to tie in with the Geonosis subplot in Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike.

In the game, the Mini Death Star has 2000 shield power (where the average is 20-30) and its hull strength is 2 (where the average is 100). Its primary laser does 100 damage, which kills any starfighter in 2 hits or less, and can destroy capital ships with ease if many shots are fired in rapid succession.

The Mini Death Star can only be unlocked in the game after the player beats wave 90 in Survivial mode.

Appearances

 * Ace and Commander