The White House has repsonded to a now infamous petition for the government to build a Death Star, which clearly isn’t a cheap or easy proposition. I mean, even the Empire couldn’t get it done right.
We still don’t know who came up with all this, but we presume it’s a big joke, and apparently the government responded in a similar fashion.
Apparently this petition did go pretty far through the system, and Paul Shawcross, who is the chief of the Science and Space Branch at the White House Office of Management and Budget, gave three big reasons why they don’t want to let this go through. First of all, the money involved, which is enormous…$850 quadrillion exactly, and as Shawcross explained, “We’re working hard to reduce the deficit, not expand it.”
And indeed, this is the wrong time to ask to build a Death Star with the economy still a mess. Reason number two? The response gives away that the White House gets the joke: “The Administration does not support blowing up planets.” Reason number three? “Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?”
It’s funny that the White House would even give this a response at all, but considering it garnered enough votes to go through, maybe our government figured what was the harm in playing along with the gag? This petition needed 25,000 signatures to go through by a certain date, and it got over 34,000 by January 11. Unsurprisingly, the threshold for future White House petitions has been raised, and now requires 100,000 to be eligible for consideration.
So after the White House delivered the bad news, The Galactic Empire responded, with a statement from Governor Wilhuff Tarkin of the Outer Rime Territories: “It is doubtless that such a technological terror in the hands of so primitive a world would be used to upset the peace and sanctity of the citizens of the Galactic Empire. Such destructive power can only be wielded to protect and defend by so enlightened a leader as Emperor Palpatine.” As Rolling Stone reports, Tarkin also laughed at the “obvious cowardice” of Earth, which he called “unimaginatively named.”
Again, all this stuff is in good fun, and it’s still unknown who set all this up in the first place. Whoever started this prank, come forward and show yourselves! Be proud that you came up with a funny idea that got enough votes to go all the way to the White House. Power to the people…
