Another destructive trait: a good way to tick off Star Wars fans is by asking them that trick Trivial Pursuit question: "According to the movies, how many Death Stars did the Empire build?" Answer? One. They never finished the second one.
Origins: It seems more and more that the first Death Star was really just a test-bed for this one. After decades of trial and error, the Empire showed much more confidence in its construction techniques in order to build a bigger, badder superweapon in a fraction of the time. Although the first Death Star had many fathers, Bevel Lemelisk seemed to take the hardest fall for its destruction. The Emperor repeatedly cloned him and fed him to piranha beetles as punishment. When not being devoured, Lemelisk developed the follow-up station.
Plausible Non-Draconian Reason To Keep it Around: The Empire had already invested so much in licensed and spin-off merchandise surrounding the first Death Star.
Designer Gripes: Enormous yawning pits with no hand-railings? You'd think even the Emperor's throne room would warrant a few safety barriers.
Considerably Less Effective Name: The Round Thing.
Achilles Heel: The Empire patched that thermal exhaust port bug by distributing the station's waste heat through a series of microscopic ducts, rather than through one exploitable two-meter hole. The station's superstructure wasn't completed, exposing its reactor, and the shield generator protecting the station was guarded by a legion of the Emperor's finest troops... who weren't very good. Some like to think the death of the Emperor led to a post-defeat-of-Sauron-like vulnerability in the troops. We prefer to think that Ewoks kick butt.
Continuity Headache: It took almost 20 years to build the first one, and yet this one could have seen completion in as little as four years. If we're to believe the Empire learned a lot from their pitfalls and delays from the first Death Star, then by that reasoning, Boston's next Big Dig could be finished in about three years.
Further Reading: Star Wars: Complete Locations, 2005 from DK Books, takes a look at the phases of construction of the second Death Star, as well as a detailed guide to the Emperor's throne room.
