When two Death Stars were destroyed in the Star Wars galaxy, the Rebel Alliance celebrated. It was a triumph of good over evil, and it’s just that simple, right?
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Well, for decades there are people who like to take this fantasy story and try to analyze it as if it were real events. The Force isn’t the only thing thrown out of balance by such events, Popular Science reports; the economy would be affected horribly as well.
Working from an economic analysis paper by professor Zachary Feinstein of Washington University in St. Louis, PopSci summarized what building and destroying a Death Star would actually cost the galaxy. He started by finding the cost of the first Death Star, around $193 Quintillion, and the GDP of the Empire’s economy, about $4.6 Sextillion per year.
Destroying the Death Stars, then, would devastate the economy. If the banks, manipulated into power by Palpatine during his rise, own about 60% of the Empire’s funds, and thus of the Death Stars, their sudden destruction would cut the galaxy’s entire system to shreds. The Rebel Alliance (and fledgling New Republic) would need funds equal to about 20% of the economy to bail out the banks, or else they’d see a terrible depression “of an astronomical scale.”
The good news is, this is a fictional fantasy world, where “credits” are basically present just to show an exchange of goods. It’s safe to say that after the negative reaction to the banking discussion-heavy Phantom Menace, we don’t want to see any of this kind of talk in Star Wars: The Force Awakens when it hits theaters on December 18.
