The Star Wars franchise is famous for its continual use of massive superweapons, and none is more iconic than the Galactic Empire's Death Stars from the original trilogy. However, while the massive battle stations are the Empire's most well-known weapon of mass destruction, they were not the most powerful weapon in their arsenal.

The World Devastator Project introduced in Star Wars Legends acted as a far more efficient weapon. It was able to subjugate planets without destroying them by mass-producing droid-piloted TIE Fighters and cannibalizing enemy ships, creating a perpetual fleet to dominate star systems.

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Designed by Imperial Engineer; Umak Leth, the World Devastator first appeared in the 1991 six-issue miniseries Star Wars: Dark Empire (by Tom Veitch, Cam Kennedy and Tom Klein) as a new type of weapon that deconstructed planets to harvest their raw resources instead of merely destroying them. The planets' resources could be harvested by the Devastator's built-in automated foundries to churn out new starfighters and cruisers, creating an endless supply of ships for the Galactic Empire. The remaining resources would then be used to help power the weapon's massive tractor beams that were powerful enough to rip the crust of a planet apart.

In Star Wars: Dark Empire, a fleet of Devastators destroyed dozens of planets protected by the New Republic. This led to a war that ended at the oceanic planet of Mon Calamari, where the Republic fleet proved incapable of stopping the powerful weapon.

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Unlike the two Death Stars, The World Devastators did not possess a critical design flaw that could be exploited. They did not have any small exhaust ports that traveled straight to the main reactors like the First Death Star, or a trench system that could allow a starfighter to enter the center of the weapon like the Second Death Star. Even if the Devastators were remotely shut down from the inside, the shields of the weapon would remain operational as it continued to mass-produce ships.

It took Jedi Master Luke Skywalker months of infiltration to gain access to the central controls of the World Devastator's droid brains and reprogram them into firing on one another. However, the time it took to finally destroy the fleet of Devastators far outweighed the time taken to destroy both Death Star's, making it clear that in terms of architectural security, the World Devastators outmatched their moon-sized brethren.