Star Wars: How Many People Died On The Death Star In A New Hope?
Yoda may not want to judge people by their size, but there are certain scenarios where quantity matters. One of those is casualties — and the "Star Wars" universe is filled with high-volume kill counts, including the destruction of the Death Star. This happens twice, via "A New Hope" and "The Return of the Jedi." While the second Death Star is only partially built when it goes down, in "A New Hope," we get a completed and fully operational Death Star. When the space station explodes in the rapturous closing minutes of the movie, it may leave the Rebel Alliance all smiles, but it begs the question: How many people go down with the oversized peashooter?
According to Brad Burnie writing for Starships.com, the official number of casualties with Death Star 1.0 stands at 1,565,231. It's worth pointing out that the destruction of the Death Star is one of the highest death rates you can find on the silver screen. It's not the biggest one of all, though. Thanos' snap in "Avengers: Infinity War," for instance, instantly wipes out half of life in the galaxy (and killed the MCU, to boot). Of course, everyone comes back. Still, there are plenty of other less fortunate examples. One of these is early in the popular space comedy classic "Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy" when several billion humans are snuffed out in an instant. Earlier in "A New Hope," the planet of Alderaan's destruction is a bloody and sobering moment, too. Still, it doesn't change the fact that when Death Star 1.0 bites the dust, a heck of a lot of people die all at once.
How do we get to the 1,565,231 million figure?
Brad Burnie is a thorough and informed "Star Wars" fan, and he backs up his precise figure with several key stats. Without going into the formulaic detail provided in Burnie's own analysis, let's just say that the book "Star Wars: Rogue One: The Ultimate Visual Guide" explains that there are approximately 1,196,294 personnel on Death Star 1.0. Burnie adds that the guidebook "Star Wars: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know" claims that there are 342,953 Imperial Navy and Army garrison members and 25,984 Stormtroopers aboard as well. Add these together, and you get the 1,565,231 figure we started with.
While impressive, it's worth pointing out that there are a couple of confusing points with Burnie's math. For instance, through a convoluted string of mathematical analysis, he adds that there are probably around 6,600 workers on board the Death Star, but it's not noted if this is included in his final figure. He also explains that the guidebook "Star Wars: Age of Rebellion — Dawn of Rebellion Sourcebook" adds that there are 750,000 passengers on the Death Star at the time of its destruction. It isn't clear if this is included in the "personnel" figure, and based on Merriam-Webster's definition of personnel as "a body of persons usually employed," it's natural to assume that they aren't. That would boost the grand total to well over 2.25 million casualties at the time of the Death Star's explosion.
Burnie does add a shout-out for another group of sentient individuals who are left out of the calculations entirely. No droid losses are accounted for and doubtless were present in force on a high-functioning, fully-equipped battle station like the Death Star.
Geographic analysis and considerations
Brad Burnie also discusses the issue of space. Can the Death Star hold over one and a half million (or possibly as much as two and a quarter million) individuals? The total personnel was likely at full capacity at the time of the explosion, as everyone would have been called in to tussle with the Rebel Alliance fleet.
Burnie calculates that the Death Star (which is roughly 100 miles in width) has a surface area of around 30,000 square miles. He compares this to Iceland's space (the island nation is around 40,000 square miles) and China's population density. The analysis reveals that 1.5 million is far too high a figure to fit in a space that small, and a total of 273,195 people is more believable.
Once again, though, the reasoning here has a potential flaw. Taking into account the surface area of the Death Star is a good starting point, but the station clearly has levels. If you add all of those extra layers of space, you could easily increase the number of people on board.
The other weak point in the argument is assuming that the population of China would be equivalent to that of a hyper-efficient space station design. Even in a densely populated area like China (with 393 people per square mile), the average individual has nearly 71,000 square feet of space. The Death Star (which is a military base, not a luxury vacation resort) would need much less room per individual stationed there.
All that said, 1,565,231 is a good estimate of the number of people who died on Death Star 1.0. Even so, it has its question marks and leaves plenty of questions for Star Wars fandom to grapple with moving forward.