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Starkiller Base is obviously a stand-in for the Death Star. This is made explicit during the scene where a hologram shows how much bigger it is than the Death Star in an unintentionally hilarious Star Wars moment. And the physics of draining a star is only the beginning, as one Redditor also points out how the beam wouldn’t have been able to destroy planets lightyears away so quickly: «How can they see the planets being destroyed from a planet in another solar system? It takes light thousands of years to travel that far.» The simplest explanation would be not to think about Star Wars science too hard, but better reasoning comes from the «Force Awakens» novelization.
In a separate Reddit thread, u/rick17126 mentions how the book better explains how Starkiller Base works: «In the novelization, the weapon is not powered by drawing plasma from the sun it orbits. It recharges through a system that slowly draws in Dark Energy and is stored [within] the core of the planet before firing [its] payload through subspace, essentially creating a temporary wormhole between Starkiller Base and the target.» The star isn’t being drained to the point of destruction; it’s just having its dark energy drained. To explain why the planets are destroyed so quickly, a wormhole opens up so that the beam effectively disappears and reemerges lightyears away.
Granted, one would only know this by reading the book, so, understandably, things would get confusing from watching the movie alone. Certain aspects of Star Wars, like the science behind lightsabers, can be overlooked. But the science of Starkiller Base is a bit harder for some fans to accept.
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