Abaddon_Ambrosius posted:
Even if the problem was finding enough loyal personnel... that's also moot.
Star Wars showed a marked lack of understanding of econ in many ways, in that the damned station itself had a massive population of people. That's pretty damned inefficient, if the problem wasn't money, but rather that the Empire couldn't find enough people to man its machinery. They could have just used that staff to man hundreds of new star destroyers.
Even if the problem was finding enough loyal personnel... that's also moot.
Star Wars showed a marked lack of understanding of econ in many ways, in that the damned station itself had a massive population of people. That's pretty damned inefficient, if the problem wasn't money, but rather that the Empire couldn't find enough people to man its machinery. They could have just used that staff to man hundreds of new star destroyers.
Don't forget that the stormtroopers are clones (if the awful prequels have anything to say about it), so I'm sure the Emperor ordered a huge batch of them to be made specifically to man the Death Star. Even then, I'm sure they had more than enough people who'd be willing to volunteer to work on that thing (aka more money, career advancement, or possibly both).
ROTJ did have the Imperial officer mention not having enough men though, but it's likely the Emperor was speeding up the date which it could at least shoot stuff (aka during the Battle of Endor). Had he of given them more time to build it, they probably would've been at it for at least a few more months before it became operational.
