hahaha,
indeed, thanks for sharing
I've heard similar things that fans have arrived at over the years
http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Tech/Myths/Nanotech.htmlDr Saxton (who wrote a couple of the incredible cross sections books),
or Kaku's reflections to name but a few...
the deathstar being a variant of dyson-sphere - a megalithic vehicle,
from higher up the kardashev scale...
it is one scale of hypothetical, to look at our present abilities,
and extrapolate from that - "gee, musta bankrupted them".
Yet, as Kaku and Wong observe...
consider the "chunkification" of Alderaan... the sheer power to do that, and with such energy... it is considerable.
let alone, the fact that FTL technology is abundant and miniaturised
the Wars universe has an energy scale, and periodic table unknown to us presently...
either that, or they've got "the replicator"/ "Kaku atomic recompiler" and "the transporter" working just fine.
Dr Saxton reflects that, although the deathstar appears to be moon/planetoid sized,
it is mostly hollow, with spartan living quarters arrayed to the 'crust'
still, it is a lotta lotta "ceramic polymer" or metal to be used to make a planetoid-scale vehicle -
we're talking astromining on the scale of harvesting nebulae or whole planets to re-arrange it into the deathstar...
so, maybe the empire has a resource-based "steady state" economy,
or a war 'realpolitik" economy, in which case
"fear, fear of this battlestation" (a proxy for the petrochemical system post gold-standard, being backed by MADD... JSTOR is our friend heheh) is how 'credits will do fine".
there again,
reading some of the comments "after the jump"...
maybe far too many fans have
thought for far too long about a subject
"long ago, in a galaxy far far away"...