A well-known thesis put forth in the movie "
Clerks," which states that, given the size of the
Death Star, and the massive engineering feat which put it together, it must have been constructed mostly or entirely by
private, non-
Imperial contractors. While making no presumptions about the standing size of the
Imperial army, one could probably assume that most of their soldiers
were not trained in advanced
space station construction,
weapon systems construction, and the undoubtedly intricate
infrastructure of such a facility. Thus, the Imperium would likely have bid the project out to a major
military contractor with the experience, resources, and personnel needed to complete the job. The thesis presented in "
Clerks" would suggest that those laborers,
innocent civilians all, died needlessly every time the
rebels blew up the
Death Star.
However, like any modern-day military construction project, such as the construction of
NORAD or the
Pentagon, the workers are not entirely innocent. First, they would have some clue, however small, as to what they were building. At the very least, they could guess that their work was facilitating the
United States government, or the
Empire, or that they were working under a
military contact. If they continued their work despite, or because, of that, they are facilitators. Unless the
Imperium was using
slave labor, of which there was never any mention, all workers and all contractors would have been free to
quit, if they so chose. That being the case, no worker who contributed to the
Death Star was any more innocent than a factory owner who made
munitions for
Nazi Germany, or a scientist who designed
ICBMs or
nuclear warheads for the
U.S.