From Admiral Ackbar’s Lonely Limbs Club Band (2019). A workplace safety complaint, submitted roughly forty years late, on behalf of the Imperial rank and file.

The thermal exhaust port is not the problem

Everyone fixates on the two-meter hole. Fair enough — it did destroy the station. But the exhaust port was a design flaw that took a Force-guided proton torpedo to exploit. The railings are a design flaw that anyone could die from on an ordinary Tuesday.

Watch the films again with a clipboard. Obi-Wan walks a catwalk over a bottomless shaft with no barrier of any kind. Luke and Leia arrive at a severed bridge with a thousand-foot drop and no guard. The reactor shaft where Vader tells Luke about his parentage is an open industrial chasm with a single unprotected gantry running through it, and that’s where two people have their most important conversation.

Somebody signed off on this

That’s the part the song can’t let go of. The Death Star was built by an empire with functionally unlimited resources and a mandatory-overtime culture. Someone drew these plans. Someone approved them. Someone in Imperial procurement looked at a line item marked “handrails” and struck it.

And the kicker, which the song saves for the outro: the Ewoks — who have not discovered electricity — put rope railings on their treehouse walkways. A pre-industrial species on a forest moon has a better fall-protection standard than the most advanced military in the galaxy.

Also worth noting

The Empire’s hiring practices do not survive scrutiny either. No accessibility to speak of, and a workforce that is conspicuously uniform in every sense of the word. The Rebellion had a Wookiee, a princess, two droids and a farm kid. The Empire had Tarkin’s cheekbones and forty thousand identical helmets. Diversity of thought, it turns out, is also a safety feature.

Lyrics

They really missed the mark
When they built the Death Star
Oh, and I know that you probably think
I’m talking about the little hole that you shoot in to blow it up
But not today
I just mean the basic amenities
Like rails on the walkways
So if you trip you don’t end up falling a thousand feet

And it’s gonna be a long ride
‘Cause working here is suicide
And it’s gonna be a long ride
‘Cause working here is suicide

It really seems to me
That there’s no wheelchair accessibility
And based on what I’ve seen
They don’t hire with equal opportunity
But someone, sometime, must have asked for railings
I guess that’s one way to get your Storm Troopers not to lean

And it’s gonna be a long ride
‘Cause working here is suicide
And it’s gonna be a long ride
‘Cause working here is suicide
Suicide

This ship’s not OSHA approved
This ship’s not OSHA approved
Don’t walk beside me
I’ll be crawling down on my knees
This ship’s not OSHA approved
This ship’s not OSHA approved
Somebody find me a better ship to ride please
Don’t trip, you’ll fall to your doom
Don’t trip, you’ll fall to your doom
Someone explain to me how the Ewoks beat these guys in workplace safety

No seriously, how is it that the most advanced, resourceful, and powerful civilization in the galaxy
Somehow has facilities that are more dangerous than the ones built by some furballs on Endor
Who haven’t even discovered electricity yet
Just because they at least bothered to put some frickin’ ropes up in their treehouses
So no one falls down
Aw yeah!

(And it’s gonna be a long ride)
(And it’s gonna be a long ride)
(Long ride)

“OSHA Approved” appears on Admiral Ackbar’s Lonely Limbs Club Band by The Han Solo Project. Related reading: Death Star or Death Trap?. More lyrics, or use this song in your podcast for free.