Author: David Bullock

Star Wars weapons put real-life weapons to shame. A near-weightless beam of energy, the lightsaber outclasses a sword in damage and durability. Blasters and energy weapons tear through armor – both personal body armor and the metal hulls of starships. Even our nuclear weapons are relatively minor compared to the super weapons of a galaxy far, far away that can end planets and civilizations on a whim.

Imagine a weapon that can leach energy from a nearby star and use it to strike fear into the galaxy at large. Energy and mass are transferred from the burning stars to power the evil machinations of dark lords. And it almost always ends in the total annihilation of entire planets. If this sounds like Starkiller Base from Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, it should. But it also sounds a lot like something else.

I had some time to catch up on reading over the long weekend, and wouldn’t you know it, something very similar to Starkiller Base existed during The Old Republic era. In the comics, volume 3: The Lost Suns, there is another sun-eating superweapon. In my personal head-canon, I’d like to believe that Kylo Ren got some ideas from the history of this time. We know it’s where he obtained the design for his lightsaber, and who knows if he had any input on Starkiller?

The ancient weapon is known as the Sun Razer, a sun-siphoning superweapon designed by Sith Lord Darth Mekhis. Her space stations were designed to be positioned around especially powerful stars, and drain them of their matter and energy in order to power other superweapon construction projects, most notably star destroyers such as the Ascendant Spear, Gauntlet, Silencer, Emperor’s Shadow, and Undying. (It is a requirement that all Sith weapons have awesome names FYI)

Just like Starkiller Base, the Sun Razer consumes solar energy with devastating effect. We know Starkiller eventually does its namesake and totally removes the star from space, but this has yet to be a confirmed side effect of the Sun Razer’s continued use. In my mind, the Sun Razer is actually much more terrifying than Starkiller. Sure, Starkiller is effectively a giant shotgun combined with a giant sniper rifle and a Death Star, able to destroy a cluster of planets across the galaxy almost instantaneously. But the Sun Razer not only drains the life of the sun, but also powers factories that churn out even more superweapons like faster star destroyers, destroyers with ‘fleet killing’ superlasers, and advanced cloaking technology. This weapon would not only devastate the star system by weakening or outright destroying its sun, but it would also help create more weapons to conquer other star systems.

Maybe the First Order is strapped for resources and had to settle for one ultimate weapon in its shotgun/sniper rifle/Death Star, but their evil hearts were in the right place when they looked to the Sun Razer for inspiration. Obviously this is all just head-canon to me, but since nothing in canon directly contradicts it, I’ll go with it. It’s fun to think of Kylo and Snoke looking to Mekhis’s ultimate weapons for ideas, and having to settle for one weapon versus a fleet of specialized super destroyers. The First Order simply doesn’t have the budget to do it the old way – no slaves, fewer controlled territories and planets to strip for resources, and even less public backing than the Empire.

Now if they would only address the single design flaw of these weapons, which is the biggest similarity between the Sun Razer and Starkiller – get it some plot armor so it isn’t destroyed within five minutes of the good guys knowing it exists. Let it be out there and be an ever-present threat! Let it be terrifying! Both Death Stars, the Sun Razer, and Starkiller Base all effectively have space cardboard for plot armor and it’d be amazing to see one of these weapons really change the galaxy rather than just scare it for a few hours.

Interested in talking about Star Wars theories? Leave a comment below! I come up with head-canon reasons for things all the time and might do articles/rants like these from time to time.