Classroom Cuts: The Death Star Governance Failure

Topic: Responsibility, Safety, and Systems of Government
Source Material: The Data Lampoon

LEVEL 1: Grades 2–3 (Social Emotional Learning & Basic Safety)

Learning Objective: Students will identify why rules and locks are important for safety and understand the consequence of being careless.

The Story: The Open Door Problem

Imagine you have a secret clubhouse. You want to keep your favorite toys safe inside. You build a huge wall around it, but you forget to put a lock on the front door. That is exactly what the Galactic Empire (the bad guys in Star Wars) did.

The Empire built a giant space station called the Death Star. They thought they were so big and scary that no one would ever touch their things. Because they were arrogant (too proud), they didn’t use passwords or locks on their computer files. They left their "digital door" wide open.

Because the Empire was careless, the Rebels (the good guys) snuck in. They didn’t need to break down the door; they just walked in! They found the plans for the Death Star and discovered a tiny weak spot. Because the Empire didn’t keep their secrets safe, the Rebels used those plans to stop the bad guys.

The Lesson: Being big and strong doesn’t matter if you aren’t careful. We use locks, passwords, and rules to keep everyone safe.

Vocabulary

• Arrogant: Thinking you are better or smarter than everyone else.
• Consequence: What happens after you do something (like getting a scraped knee after falling).
• Security: Keeping things safe.

Discussion Questions

1. Why was it a mistake for the Empire to think they didn’t need locks?
2. If you have a secret diary or a tablet, how do you keep others from looking at it?
3. Why do we have rules in the classroom? Are they there to be mean, or to keep us safe?

Activity: The "Open Box" Experiment

Materials: Two shoeboxes (one open, one taped shut), two pieces of candy.

1. Setup: Put a piece of candy in the open box. Put a piece of candy in the taped box (the "Locked" box).
2. The Test: Ask a student to try to get the candy. They will grab the open one instantly. It will take time to get into the taped one.
3. The Takeaway: Explain that Security buys you time. The Empire had zero security, so the Rebels won quickly.

LEVEL 2: Grades 4–5 (Systems Thinking & Logic)

Learning Objective: Students will analyze how a single mistake can ruin a big project and understand the concept of a "Single Point of Failure."

The Story: The One-In-A-Million Mistake

The Death Star was the size of a moon. It cost billions of credits. It had thousands of workers. Yet, it was destroyed because of one tiny hole and a stolen map. How did this happen?

It happened because of a Single Point of Failure.

The Empire kept all their blueprints in one computer tower on a planet called Scarif. They didn’t make copies. They didn’t keep backups. Even worse, the person who designed the station, Galen Erso, was angry at the Empire. He secretly hid a trap in the design.

Because the Empire’s bosses didn’t listen to their workers, nobody checked Galen Erso’s work. Nobody noticed the trap. And because they didn't have Two-Factor Authentication (like when a website sends a code to your parent's phone), the Rebels stole the map easily. The Empire relied on big walls, but they forgot to check the small details.

The Lesson: You can build the biggest tower in the world, but if the bottom brick is loose, the whole thing falls.

Vocabulary

• Single Point of Failure: If this one thing breaks, everything breaks.
• Backup: A copy of your work in case the first one gets lost.
• Verification: Double-checking to make sure something is true.

Discussion Questions

1. Why is it dangerous to keep all your important things in one place (like the Empire did on Scarif)?
2. Galen Erso tricked the Empire because no one checked his work. Why is peer review (letting a classmate check your work) important?
3. The Empire ignored warnings. Have you ever ignored a warning (like "tie your shoe") and had something go wrong?

Activity: The Jenga Tower of Doom

Materials: A Jenga set (or blocks).

1. Build: Have students build a tower. Tell them this is the Death Star.
2. The Flaw: Secretly designate one bottom block as the "Thermal Exhaust Port."
3. The Attack: Ask students to tap the top blocks. Nothing happens (The Empire is strong!).
4. The Failure: Pull the "Exhaust Port" block. The tower falls.
5. Assessment: Have students write one sentence about why the "strong" tower fell.

LEVEL 3: Grades 6–8 (Civics & Leadership)

Learning Objective: Students will evaluate how "fear culture" in a government leads to bad decisions and the importance of speaking truth to power.

The Story: Governing Through Fear

Why did the Galactic Empire fail? It wasn’t just because of Luke Skywalker. It was because of bad governance.

In the Empire, if you gave the Emperor bad news, you might get fired (or worse). Because of this, everyone was afraid to speak up.

• When engineers saw a flaw in the Death Star, they stayed silent.
• When security officers saw the password system was weak, they didn't report it.
• They were afraid of being punished for "lack of faith."

This created a Culture of Silence. In a good government or organization, leaders want to know about problems so they can fix them. In a dictatorship like the Empire, image is more important than truth. Because no one was brave enough to tell the truth to Director Krennic or Grand Moff Tarkin, the security holes stayed open.

The Lesson: A strong leader listens to warnings. A weak leader punishes people who give bad news.

Vocabulary

• Governance: The way a group or country is managed and controlled.
• Whistleblower: A person inside an organization who reports a problem or crime to the public.
• Accountability: Accepting responsibility for your actions.

Discussion Questions (Civics Focus)

1. The First Amendment: In the US, we have Freedom of Speech. How does this help prevent the kind of "Culture of Silence" that destroyed the Death Star?
2. Chain of Command: If an Imperial Officer saw a problem but his boss told him to be quiet, what should he have done? Is it hard to do the right thing when your boss is scary?
3. Transparency: The Empire tried to hide their failure by blowing up their own base. Why is "cover-up" usually worse than the crime?

Activity: The "Blind Spot" Debate

Scenario: You are the Imperial Security Board. You just found out the Death Star plans are vulnerable.

• Group A (The Yes-Men): Argue that you should not tell the Emperor because he will be angry.
• Group B (The Whistleblowers): Argue that you must tell the Emperor to save the station.
• Conclusion: The class votes on which strategy is actually safer for the Empire in the long run.

LEVEL 4: High School (Civics, Comp Sci, & Public Policy)

Learning Objective: Students will apply principles of cybersecurity and organizational psychology to perform a "Root Cause Analysis" of a systemic failure.

Case Study: The Scarif Data Breach

Subject: Organizational Failure in the Galactic Empire Incident: Unauthorized exfiltration of Top Secret schematics ("Project Stardust").

The Abstract: The destruction of the DS-1 Orbital Battle Station was not a military defeat; it was a compliance failure. An internal audit reveals that the Rebel Alliance exploited vulnerabilities that had been identified months prior but were ignored by executive leadership.

Key Failures Identified:

1. Identity Access Management (IAM): The Rebel Jyn Erso had been in Imperial custody under a false alias ("Liana Hallik"). A simple biometric cross-reference with the Erso family database would have flagged her as a high-value target.
2. Insider Threat: Chief Architect Galen Erso sabotaged the project from within. The Empire failed to implement "Peer Review" or independent auditing of his code, leading to the thermal exhaust port vulnerability.
3. Shadow IT: Officers were using weak, unencrypted channels to transfer data.
4. Incident Response: When the breach occurred at Scarif, Grand Moff Tarkin’s response was to destroy the infrastructure (the Citadel Tower) rather than secure the network. This resulted in total data loss for the Empire and failed to stop the leak.

The Lesson: Institutional arrogance and a lack of checks and balances create systemic risk.

Vocabulary

• Root Cause Analysis: Tracing a problem back to its origin (not just "the tire is flat," but "there was a nail in the road").
• Systemic Risk: A risk that threatens the collapse of an entire system, not just one part.
• Checks and Balances: A system where different parts of an organization limit each other's power to prevent mistakes.

Discussion Questions (Advanced)

1. Policy vs. Practice: The Empire likely had rules, but nobody followed them. How does an organization's "culture" eat its "policy" for breakfast?
2. The Insider Threat: Galen Erso is a classic "Insider Threat." In the real world (e.g., Edward Snowden or corporate espionage), how do governments balance trusting their employees with monitoring them?
3. The "Nuclear" Option: Tarkin blew up the base to stop the leak. In the real world, have you seen companies or politicians destroy evidence to hide a mistake? Why does this usually backfire?

Activity: The "5 Whys" Post-Mortem

Instruction: Divide students into groups. They must act as the Imperial Inspector General. They have to use the "5 Whys" technique to find the root cause of the Death Star explosion.

Example:

1. Why did the Death Star explode? Because a torpedo hit the exhaust port.
2. Why was the exhaust port there? Because Galen Erso put it there.
3. Why did Galen Erso put it there? He wanted to sabotage the station.
4. Why was he able to sabotage it? Because nobody checked his work.
5. Why did nobody check his work? (Root Cause) Because the Empire’s leadership was arrogant and didn't believe in independent oversight.

Output: Students must write a 1-page "Executive Order" recommending three policy changes to prevent this from happening to the Death Star II.