One with a functioning ecosystem, a mature economy, and a large population of potential subjects? Even more so. 2/6
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A planet-cracker's the sort of thing an Empire motivated by profit and domination will only build in response to an existential threat, i.e. Mutually Assured Destruction against an otherwise overwhelming adversary, or one who has a similar weapon.3/6
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That's not to say that some types of empire wouldn't develop or use these weapons (e.g. a crusader empire, or one dedicated to the destruction of all outgroup life), but even then these would only be used on outgroup worlds, and only ones without exploitable resources. 4/6
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The original Star Wars gets a _little_ bit of a pass because if you happened to build something like that, you should have one of them, and you might use it exactly once, as a demonstration as force. 5/6
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But even that's a stretch - a test against a lightly populated world would do just fine as a threat.6/6
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Ok - so, someone in a really big hurry to conquer all known space might use something like this more than once - but that sort of thing is also usually motivated by an existential threat, and Palpatine? He's been chilling out for decades. Clearly wasn't in a hurry till just now.
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