Star Wars: 10 Things You Didn't Know About Star Destroyers
6. Destroyer Names Are Steeped In Real-Life Roman History
The behind-the-scenes creation of Destroyer ships is almost as interesting as the Star Wars canon trivia.
When George Lucas and the creative team began developing the storyline for what became Star Wars: A New Hope, they not only needed to create characters and plot, but everything from weapons, planets, and of course jaw-dropping spaceships.
There was long-standing belief that initial drawings of a smaller Star Destroyer model depicted the vessel as named Imperator. However, many of the spaceship designs were greatly upscaled prior to production on the movie commencing.
It was later written into canon that, following the Great Jedi Purge that takes place between events of Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, the name of the Destroyer class ships was changed from Imperator to Imperial, to reflect the Emperor’s new reign.
The word “imperator” is Latin and was often used in the Roman Republic as a title for an army commander. Then, in later times during the reign of the Roman Empire, imperator was used as a title worn by Roman emperors to signify their supreme power.