#how often does draven stare at stacks of reports till his eyes cross because he knows there's something there but he doesn't know WHAT

[chamerionwrites]

Do you ever contemplate the fact that - at least according to the ending scenes of Return of the Sith - plans for the Death Star were developed (and the initial phases of its construction begun!) during the Clone Wars? I mean clearly it was a closely-guarded secret otherwise Alliance leadership with its heavy concentration of ex-Republican politicians and military officers would have known about it from the beginning, but...still. That’s not a small project. That’s not something Palpatine can set in motion on his own. A number of people in the theoretically not-yet-fascist state definitely signed on for carrying I am become death, destroyer of worlds to its most literal extreme. Or did Sheev delegate this project to the Separatist interests he was controlling? IIRC the Geonosians were involved but Galen Erso’s connection as well as the sheer SCALE of that project suggests it was the brainchild of the Republic’s military-industrial complex. Either way, the fridge horror is strong with this one.

Also - how long has this been on Rebel Intelligence’s radar? By the time of Rogue One this thing has been under construction for twenty years, and a good number of the people in the Alliance’s command structure defected from the system that was building it. Who’s heard whispers? Who’s pored over intelligence reports and dimly seen the shape of something terrible in the empty spaces? How long has this looming unnamed uncertain threat been hanging over the people whose job it is to deal with looming threats before they spiral out of control?