Tantive IV

"This is a consular ship&hellip; we're on a diplomatic mission&hellip;''" "''If this is a consular ship, where is the Ambassador?"

- Captain Antilles and Darth Vader

The Tantive IV was a CR90 corvette in the service of the House of Organa. The ship was a central player in the events at the beginning of the Galactic Civil War, serving as Princess Leia Organa's personal starship in the leadup to the Battle of Yavin.

Description
The ship was mostly white, as was typical for CR90 corvettes, painted with red lines. As a vessel of state, the ship featured dining rooms for hosting state dinners, as well as conference centers suitable for negotiations with interstellar dignitaries. Bail Organa had an office aboard. The Tantive IV also carried at least two escape pods.

History
The ship was used by Bail Organa as a mobile headquarters during his duties as the Senator of Alderaan, during and after the Clone Wars. Organa took it to Toydaria in order to negotiate with King Katuunko about the possibility of using his world as a staging ground for a Republic supply mission to Ryloth. One year after the rise of the Galactic Empire, it was briefly broken into by Ahsoka Tano in her quest to speak with Bail. She had R2-D2's assistance in this, as the astromech droid secretly opened one of the corvette's airlocks so Ahsoka, wearing a spacesuit, could slip inside. It later assisted with the evacuation of Raada.

Five years before the Battle of Yavin, the Spectres returned C-3PO and R2-D2 to Organa aboard the Tantive IV. The two droids had been on a mission to prevent a shipment of T-7 ion disruptor rifles from falling into Imperial hands, and had encountered the Ghost crew in the process.

When Leia Organa came of age and had her Day of Demand, she was able to requisition the ship for use on relief missions. She took the Tantive IV on her first such mission, to Wobani, where she wound up evacuating 100 refugees under the pretence of hiring them as crew for the corvette, unwittingly destroying Bail's secret negotiations to relocate the suffering planet's population. Leia took the vessel on several more missions while completing her Challenge of the Heart, including to the planets Chasmeene and Chal Hudda. During this time, Bail still used the ship for rebel business, including to the rebel base at Paucris Major. The Viceroy evacuated from Paucris in the Tantive IV after Leia arrived warning of the impending arrival of an Imperial fleet in the system.

Shortly before the Battle of Scarif, the Tantive IV was on a mission in which it was severely damaged, requiring extensive repairs to its hyperdrive, engines and weapons. It was in drydock aboard the Profundity undergoing those repairs when the Rebel fleet was forced to scramble to Scarif. Princess Leia had boarded the corvette with the intention of traveling to Tatooine to meet with the exiled Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi, the battle breaking out before she could leave. Towards the end of the battle, the Tantive IV barely managed to launch from the crippled Rebel flagship and escape the battle with the stolen schematics of the Death Star before Darth Vader could board it to recover them. The crippling of the flagship also damaged the corvette's own electrical grid, leading to its shields and weapons being only partially available.

The Tantive IV then headed to Tatooine. The crew did everything in their power to keep the ship running due to the damage, and Captain Raymus Antilles planned to ditch the corvette on Tatooine, intending to acquire a new ship to complete their journey. Eight minutes —three quarters of a parsec—short of their destination, their Hyperdrive motivator gave out, and the Tantive IV was intercepted by the Imperial Star Destroyer Devastator. In the following battle, the main reactor of the Tantive IV was shut down, and Imperial stormtroopers boarded the ship. Captain Antilles gave the order for the civilians aboard to launch in the escape pod. Soon thereafter, the Imperials destroyed the Tantive IV.

Before the corvette's destruction, the droids R2-D2 and C-3PO, the former carrying the stolen plans, escaped to Tatooine on one of the ship's escape pods.

Legacy
"I survived as a prisoner, first aboard Vader's Star Destroyer and then aboard the Death Star. I never learned the fates of the others."

- Leia recounting the crew of the Tantive IV decades later

Decades after the end of the Galactic Civil War, Leia Organa, now leading the Resistance against the First Order, recounted her experiences, thinking that she never learned what happened to the crew of the Tantive IV.

Behind the scenes
The Tantive IV appears in the first Star Wars saga film, 1977's Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope.

In 2010, Lucasfilm Ltd.'s Keeper of the Holocron Leland Chee confirmed a retcon that Bail Organa's ship from Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith was indeed a different corvette, and not the Tantive IV, as was previously established.

Non-canon appearances

 * Star Wars Epic Yarns: A New Hope