Life on the Death Star
General Preface
When George Lucas created Star Wars, he wanted his universe to feel "lived in" – opposing the futuristic “clean slate” aesthetic of other sci-fi locales. Through Lucas’ attempt at realism, we are gifted a smattering of community-based case studies strewn across the Star Wars galaxy - a handful of which we will explore using the book Star Wars: Complete Locations.
Today we blow up Alderaan and fire our blasters haphazardly about the Death Star.
Life on a Death Machine
As ironic as it sounds, hundreds of thousands of personnel make their living on the Death Star. While it's certainly no moon, this gargantuan militaristic community is spread across a spherical space station nearly 100 miles in diameter.
Transportation
On a space station as large as the Death Star, a transportation system is essential. Otherwise, it would take a stormtrooper well over three days (with no breaks) to march the circumference of the sphere! Thus, to expedite travel, a high-speed shuttle system encircles the entire spheroid. Where shuttles service long-range horizonal transport, turbolifts service short-range vertical travel (though, these can move horizontally as well). From what one can tell, there's no elevator music, and it remains to be seen whether awkwardness exists in a galaxy far, far away.
Multiple hangars send and receive space-bound traffic, thus, accounting for galactic transportation.
Corridors and Shafts
Aside from its planet-obliterating superlaser and its immense size, the Death Star is also embodied by its many, many corridors. Most of these corridors are curved, dark, and lit by thin white panels upon the corridor walls. The light from these panels mimics the appearance of skylit windows - a necessary aesthetic in the darkness of space. In addition, this window-like component gives hint to an "outside" beyond the station's confinement. Each sector's central airway - a vertical shaft hundreds of feet in diameter and miles in depth - also breaks the feeling of confinement. The sub-core shafts and atriums accomplish a similar effect. Confinement, of course, isn't the only issue on a space station. Monotony is another problem. To counter this, the walls of each corridor are framed by rounded protrusions with irregular spacing. This varies the width of each corridor and keeps the pedestrian guessing, all the while, offering the lost stormtrooper "landmarks" for navigating to work. The indented pattern in the corridor ceilings further breaks up the monotony and gives visual variety. Overall, the station certainly isn't "warm" and cozy, but for a military installation, it could be much colder.
The Prison Level
The prison cell bay, while also a corridor, is much different in appearance from the rest of the station. For one thing, it's linear, and for another, there's monotony - cell after cell the same as the last as the hallway continues into infinitum. Instead of the pleasant white light found in the common corridors, the cell bay emits a strong glow of red light filtered through the metal grate floor. A solid black texture coats the walls, and the hall's hexagonal frame imposes dominance on the passer-thru. A garbage compactor lies below the prison level and doubles as a habitat for mysterious creatures - proving that the trash of sentients is the treasure of monsters.
Housing
While the movies would suggest that troopers and officers work around the clock, they do occasionally retreat back to their hovels. Officer accommodations are situated higher up in the station. Other personnel coinhabit housing blocks further below.
Utilities
The station being a self-contained habitat, utilities are a significant undercurrent for the station's inhabitants. Every sector contains multiple tanks of artificial atmosphere and a water recycling tank that not only supplies water but humidifies the air.
The People
The stoically mean-faced (albeit clumsy) stormtrooper forms the bulk of station personnel - most, if not all of them, humanoid. The human big-wig officers are snooty as ever. Darth Vader, a black-suited Sith, chokes wisdom into the wiggiest of big-wigs. On the topic of personnel, we've just received an announcement: if you see two stormtroopers escorting a Wookiee...do not approach...this is not, I repeat, NOT a prisoner transfer.
What We Can Learn
While a "military complex in the blackness of space" makes for a cold template, with the use of window-like features, architectural variety, and occasional voids (i.e. airway shafts); the station radiates a warmer, less suffocating feel. In contrast, "evil" spaces like the Death Star's prison level are appropriately sinister. Instead of feigning a utopian "happy-joy-joy" aesthetic across the prison level, it's an architectural honesty and adherence to brutality which fosters its own demonic nature.
There are also no "village greens" or "fun zones" per se, but stormtroopers have repurposed the zero-gravity filtration system as a means for recreation. This philosophically pits "programmed fun" at the designer's discretion versus "discovered fun" at the user's discretion. With this in mind, perhaps it's best to lend room for discovery on occasion by leaving some elements vague or pliable, thus, allowing users to "design" spaces by their utilitarian commandeering.
References:
Film: Star Wars: A New Hope (1977)
Star Wars: Complete Locations (illustrated by Jenssen & Chasemore). Lucas Books. DK. (2005)
Comments
Post a Comment