UPDATE: The petition has crossed the 25,000 signature threshold.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE: In the near future, it’s possible that the White House will actually have to respond to the people’s suggestion that the U.S. Government begin construction on our own Death Star by the year 2016.

That’s all thanks to the We The People online petition site, which has seen its share of publicity recently due to a flood of secession petitions that popped up shortly after the 2012 Presidential election. The White House started the We The People petition initiative in 2011 as a way to “provide a new way to petition the Obama Administration to take action on a range of important issues facing our country.”

With the current rules, if a petition reaches 25,000 signatures in one month, the White House is supposed to issue an official response.

Well, this Death Star petition has about 20,000 with two days to go.

The actual petition, which was started on 4chan and further promoted on reddit, asks the Obama administration to “Secure resources and funding, and begin construction of a Death Star by 2016.” Here’s what the body of the petition says:

Those who sign here petition the United States government to secure funding and resources, and begin construction on a Death Star by 2016. By focusing our defense resources into a space-superiority platform and weapon system such as a Death Star, the government can spur job creation in the fields of construction, engineering, space exploration, and more, and strengthen our national defense.

If it garners another 5,000 signatures in the next two days, the White House will be forced to issue an official response. Well, kind of:

“We will do our best to respond to petitions that cross the signature threshold in a timely fashion, however, depending on the topic and the overall volume of petitions from We the People, responses may be delayed,” says the White House. And we’ve yet to see any official responses for the secession petitions – and a few of those crossed the 25,000 signature threshold.

But we can hope. Part of me sees this for what it is: a bastardization of a serious process. Then again, nobody really thinks these We The People petitions can actually do anything. Also, it’s a petition to build a mf’in Death Star – what the hell am I thinking?

Anyway, some guy already calculated that is would take approximately 833,315 years to even produce enough steel to begin construction of a Death Star. At current prices, it would cost a number with over 15 zeros to make. Then again, the Death Star petition is probably more likely to work than any of those secession petitions.