Ok, by now if you actually follow Moby’s! at all you’ll notice that I plug a couple of things that are using or plan to use Kickstarter campaigns, namely Hollywood Mogul 4 and the upcoming CJ Cherryh’s Foreigner Audio Movie. Kickstarter is a great crowdfunding site to be sure, and many great things have come out of it. Sometimes I like to just browse and see what’s there, what projects look like they are going to make it, which ones are not. It really tells you what kind of stuff people want, ’cause they are putting their money where their mouth is, so to speak. And then it happened. I think I actually face-palmed when I read:

Kickstarter Open Source Death Star

We need to protect ourselves from threats far, far away. So, lets build a death star!

Then I thought about it, remembered how the whole ‘Let’s build a Death Star’ thing got started, and chuckled a bit. 

The whole story actually starts with a White House petition to build a Death Star, a petition that garnered the needed 25,000 votes to get an official response. The administration did respond, tongue planted firmly in cheek. They also recently raised the number of signatures for an official response, too. So, what’s to do if you really, really, really want that Death Star and mommy and daddy won’t buy it for you? Crowdfund it!

Goal

£20,000,000 for more detailed plans and enough chicken wire to protect reactor exhaust ports.

Stretch Goal

£543,000,000,000,000,00 ($850,000,000,000,000,000) to secure full funding for actual construction.”

Now, earlier in the blog (while discussing brown cows) it was noted that Moby does indeed have a sense of humor. I get it, it’s funny, and kudo’s to kickstarter for allowing it. I make a point to keep politics off the blog, but I am not ashamed to admit that it’s nice every once in a while to see a joke aimed so high get carried away, to get a second life, into the abstract. I love it actually.

But what if you don’t love it? What if you hate the idea of someone building a Death Star and want to build a counter to it, to destroy it? How would you? What could you possibly use? Something like…say a squadron of X-Wing Fighters? Then your in luck.

Crowdfunding Rebel X-Wing Squadron

We must defend ourselves against the Empire’s Death Star! Join the Rebel Alliance!

We can’t let this new Death Star go unchallenged, so we’re raising funds to form a new Rebel Alliance and construct a fleet of proton torpedo armed X-Wing fighters to take down this new Death Star.”

Seriously, I can’t make this stuff up. Just to be safe, I’m gonna back ’em both, politics be damned.

Note: At the time of publication, the conversion rate for the Galactic Standard Credit = 0,62 USD