Leia Organa Solo

"There is another..."

- Yoda

Princess Leia Organa Solo of Alderaan, (born Leia Amidala Skywalker in 19 BBY, pronounced /'leɪə ɔː'gɒnʌ 'səʊləʊ/) is the daughter of Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala, adopted daughter of Bail Organa and Queen Breha of Alderaan, and younger twin sister of Luke Skywalker. Later she married Han Solo and became the mother of his three children, Jaina, Jacen and Anakin Solo.

One of the most important figures in the Galactic Civil War and the New Republic, she could have been simply another galactic denizen like her brother had she not been adopted by Bail Organa. Politician, fighter, and spy was the fate that awaited her instead. She had a forceful personality and bright intellect, having accomplished much in her youth: she was a strong proponent for the Rebel Alliance, the youngest Senator ever of the Galactic Empire at eighteen standard years of age, and a member of the Royal Family of Alderaan.

Though raised in the privileged surroundings of a peaceful planet that had banished weapons from its culture, the times were dark and this fiery diplomat received martial training in order to defend herself, both with a blaster and just her bare hands. This training would serve her well in the war that shook the Galaxy. Many years later, she would be elected Chief of State of the New Republic and serve twice in that office.

Early Life (19 BBY to 0 BBY)
Leia Organa, the younger twin of Luke Skywalker, was born to Padmé Amidala and Anakin Skywalker in 19 BBY. Her mother died shortly after her birth.

The orphaned Leia was adopted and raised by Senator Bail Organa of Alderaan and his wife, Queen Breha Organa. She followed in the footsteps of her adoptive father and her late birth mother (who was, of course, unknown to her) into the office of Senator, a position which she held until the dissolution of the Senate in 0 BBY.

At the age of 18, she was the youngest member of that body. During her time in the Senate, Organa worked with Pooja Naberrie of Naboo, her maternal cousin, although the two were never informed of their biological relationship.

In 0 BBY, Organa was captured along with her ship, the Tantive IV, by Darth Vader. The Sith lord sought to recover the plans for the Death Star I, which Imperial Intelligence suggested had been stolen by Rebel spies.

Unknown to Vader, the young senator had hidden the plans inside an R2 unit, R2-D2, and sent the droid to find the legendary Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi on the planet of Tatooine.

Vader brought her to the Death Star I, where he personally interrogated and tortured her, seeking the location of the plans and the hidden Rebel base from which the Empire suspected the Alliance was striking. Remarkably, she managed to keep silent, despite Vader's Sith powers and the use of an interrogation droid.

Grand Moff Tarkin threatened Organa with the destruction of her homeworld, Alderaan, if she did not reveal the location of the Rebel base. She lied, giving them instead the location of a long-since abandoned base on Dantooine. Tarkin proceeded with the destruction of Alderaan regardless, one of the most infamous acts of the Empire and a shocking example of the Tarkin doctrine of rule by terror. Leia was then placed in a holding cell and scheduled to be executed, while the Imperial Navy deployed scout craft to investigate Dantooine.

Princess Organa's message had reached Obi-Wan Kenobi by this time, and he set out from Tatooine with Luke Skywalker, intending to bring R2-D2 to Leia on Alderaan. Kenobi had hired Han Solo as a pilot. Arriving in the Alderaan system shortly after the world's destruction, the Millennium Falcon was captured by the Death Star's tractor beam.

Surprisingly, this small group managed to avoid immediate capture. Finding that Organa was on the station, they set out to rescue her. Tarkin had by this point discovered that Dantooine was indeed abandoned. In order to find the true location of the hidden base, he ordered his soldiers to allow the small band to escape with Leia, after planting a tracking device on the Falcon. Darth Vader, meanwhile, set out to find Obi-Wan Kenobi, whom he later killed in a duel. Organa realized that her escape must have been deliberately permitted by the Empire, and surmised that the ship was being tracked. However, she nonetheless decided to return to the base on Yavin 4.

Presumably, she would have been arrested immediately had she tried to land on any inhabited Imperial world, and finding another place to trade ships would have been complicated and dangerous. (Locating the tracking device would have been virtually impossible, given how small such a device could be.) This was a risk, of course: if no weakness could be found, or if the discovered weakness could only be exploited by, for instance, a saboteur on board the Death Star, it would be necessary to stage a massive evacuation.

Returning to Yavin IV, Princess Organa found that her gamble had paid off, as the plans did in fact reveal a weakness that starfighters could potentially exploit. At the Battle of Yavin, the Death Star was destroyed by Organa's brother, Luke Skywalker. This marked a turning point for the Rebellion.

Early Galactic Civil War (0 ABY to 4 ABY)
In 3 ABY, Organa helped coordinate the evacuation of the rebel base on Hoth, an icy-rock planet. Despite the ongoing battle, she remained vigilant and issued commands from the crumbling base. Luckily, she was able to escape any danger and flee with C-3PO, Han Solo and Chewbacca on the Millennium Falcon. Pursued by Imperial fighters, and hobbled by a non-functional hyperdrive, they escaped by flying into an asteroid field.

Princess Organa's initially adversarial relationship with Han Solo around this time evolved into a love affair. Not long after their escape from Hoth, Solo was captured on Cloud City, and used as a test subject for the carbonite-freezing process which Darth Vader intended for Luke Skywalker. (Solo survived the freezing process, and was taken to Jabba by Boba Fett.)

Leia displayed latent telepathy, despite having never been trained in the use of the Force, when she sensed Luke's distress as he hung from a weather vane after being defeated by Darth Vader. She led the Falcon back to rescue him, and together they departed for a secret rendezvous point where the Rebel fleet was gathering for an attack on the Death Star II.

Organa participated in the rescue of Han Solo from Jabba the Hutt, killing the gangster herself by throttling him with a chain. She joined the gathered Rebel fleet near Sullust, and accompanied General Crix Madine's commando force to the forest moon of Endor where the Death Star's shield generator was located.

The night before the battle, Organa received news that forever changed her life. Her long-time "friend", Luke Skywalker, revealed to her that they were brother and sister, and that the fallen Jedi, Darth Vader, was their father.

It was also revealed that Organa had memories of her real mother. When Luke asked her, Organa recalled her mother as being, "...very beautiful, kind, but sad." It is unknown if Organa was talking about her adoptive mother, Queen Breha Organa, or of her birth mother, Padmé Amidala. It is speculated that Organa may have been able to sense Amidala's sadness just before her premature death at the time of Organa and Luke's birth.

The mission to Endor was eventually a success, and the Death Star II was destroyed in the epochal Battle of Endor when Lando Calrissian and Nien Nunb, piloting the Millennium Falcon, flew into the station's core and destroyed it from the inside.

Founding the New Republic and the End of the Galactic Civil War (4 ABY to 25 ABY)
Immediately after the Battle of Endor, The Rebel Alliance answered a distress call from Bakura, which was under invasion by the Ssi-ruuk. The remaining Imperial forces also gathered at Bakura, and the result was a truce between the Imperials and the Rebels. It was during this time that the spirit of Anakin Skywalker appeared to Leia to beg for her forgiveness, which she would not or could not grant at that time.

Princess Organa was a founding member of the New Republic, which was formally promulgated in 5 ABY. She succeeded Mon Mothma as its Chancellor, and later filled other offices, such as Chief of Defense, and various diplomatic posts. Although most of her life was devoted to such matters of state, she engaged in limited study of the Jedi arts, with her twin brother Luke Skywalker as her teacher. Notably, she wielded a blue lightsaber that she built herself, and then Luke gave her a red (not Sith issue) lightsaber to complement the weapon she had constructed earlier.

After a near-disastrous courtship, Organa married Han Solo in 8 ABY. At first, she did not want to have children, as she feared they would turn out like Darth Vader. While on a mission to Tatooine to retrieve Killik Twilight and the Comcast key hidden within it, Leia had discovered her grandmother Shmi's diary and, with the help of her father's childhood friends Kitster and Wald, discovered her father wasn't the evil monster she thought he was and learned to forgive him.

A year later during the Thrawn Crisis, Grand Admiral Thrawn ordered Noghri commandos to kidnap the pregnant Organa Solo. To avoid capture she hid on the planet Kashyyyk, but her would-be kidnappers tracked her. She later learned that the Darth Vader once landed on the Noghri homeplanet Honoghr and tricked the Noghri into serving the Empire by promising to help their planet recover from the ecological disaster that it suffered during the Clone Wars. Because of this, they were fiercely loyal to Vader. Organa Solo was able to use her biological relationship to Vader to go to Honoghr and convince the Noghri of the Empire’s deception. They left the service of the Empire and became allies of New Republic. Organa Solo was known as the Lady Vader among the Noghri and both she and her family became revered figures in their society.

Also during the Trawn Crisis, Organa Solo gave birth to the twins Jaina and Jacen on Coruscant. Her second son, born in 10 ABY on Nespis VIII, was given the name Anakin after his grandfather. (See House of Solo.) Of course, with the reborn Palpatine, and his clone body rapidly deteriorating, she was forced to flee to Onderon to hide Anakin Solo from him. The Emperor did eventually find her, but he was shot in the back and a sacrifice from Empatojayos Brand, saved Anakin and her from Palpatine's spirit.

Although her sibling relationship to Luke Skywalker (and their relationship to Darth Vader) became public knowledge, she remained known as the heir to Bail Organa, and thus a member of the Royal House of Alderaan. She played an important role for those Alderaanians who still lived, having been offworld at the time of the planet's destruction. She founded New Alderaan, over which the Royal House of Alderaan, in the person of Leia Organa Solo and her children, continued to hold sovereignty. The government on New Alderaan also administered their former Alderaan system. She later was elected Chief of State.

Chief of State Organa Solo guided the New Republic through a number of dangerous external crises from post-Imperial warlords. As the threat of Imperial warlords shrank and the New Republic's growth accelerated rapidly, she also faced a number of internal political conflicts in the Third Electoral. These two forces came to a head during the Black Fleet crisis in 16 ABY, in which she invoked Article Five of the Common Charter to forestall a recall vote against her office and declare war against the Yevetha. Cracks in the widespread popularity of Organa Solo began to show during this period, cracks that would accelerate with the political ascendance of Borsk Fey'lya.

The Yuuzhan Vong War and beyond (25 ABY to 35 ABY)
After serving a second term, Leia had resigned as Chief of State, and was replaced by Borsk Fey'lya. After the death of Chewbacca on Sernpidal in 25 ABY, Leia went before the Senate to bring attention to the fact that the approaching Yuuzhan Vong were a threat to the galaxy. Her pleas went unheeded, and the invasion continued full force. Leia contributed to the war effort by joining SELCORE, a movement that aided refugees.

Chewbacca's death sent Han into a deep depression, which caused a huge rift between Han and Leia, and after an argument, Han walked out on Leia. They patched things up after Leia was gravely wounded by Tsavong Lah at the Battle of Duro. Together, they would face some more hard times, including the loss of their younger son Anakin during the Myrkr mission and the fall of Coruscant during 27 ABY.

After Coruscant's fall, Han and Leia went to Hapes for Anakin's funeral, then went on several missions to restore HoloNet communications to the Unknown Regions, including foiling a second attempt of the Ssi-ruuk to invade Bakura in the process.

When Zonama Sekot made its existence known near Coruscant in 30 ABY, Han and Leia travelled there to be reunited with the rest of their family. While there, they met Harrar, a Yuuzhan Vong priest. Leia and Han worked with Harrar to get inside the Well of the World Brain on Coruscant.

After the destruction of Shimrra and Onimi, Leia was among those gathered on Zonama. She had forsaken politics and became Han's copilot, a position she held for 5 years.

In 35 ABY, Han and Leia followed the AWOL Jedi into the Unknown Regions, and discovered Raynar Thul was alive and had been taken in by a nest of Killiks. To avoid a war with the Chiss, Leia suggested to UnuThul (as Raynar was now known) that the Killik nest be moved to a new planet, but made him think it was his idea. Afterwards, Leia decided to begin formal training as a Jedi Knight, and asked Saba Sebatyne to train her.

Also around this time, R2-D2 had malfunctioned and had shown Luke a holoclip of the mother he had never known. Before Luke could get more out info out of Artoo, Artoo had a meltdown, claiming he was protecting. Frustrated, Luke contacted master slicer Ghent, who managed to recover one other holo featuring Padmé from Artoo, which was displayed to both Luke and Leia.

Behind the scenes
Leia was played by actress Carrie Fisher in the Original Trilogy and The Star Wars Holiday Special, as well as by Aiden Barton (editor Roger Barton's son) as an infant in Revenge of the Sith. Leia was also played by Ann Sachs in the 1980s radio drama.

Appearances

 * Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
 * Star Wars Battlefront II
 * Star Wars: Empire
 * Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
 * Star Wars Infinities: A New Hope (non-canon)
 * Marvel Star Wars
 * Allegiance
 * Splinter of the Mind's Eye
 * The Star Wars Holiday Special
 * Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
 * Star Wars Infinities: The Empire Strikes Back (non-canon)
 * Shadows of the Empire
 * Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
 * Star Wars Infinities: Return of the Jedi (non-canon)
 * The Truce at Bakura
 * The Courtship of Princess Leia
 * Tatooine Ghost
 * Thrawn Trilogy
 * Dark Empire
 * Dark Empire II
 * Empire's End
 * Jedi Academy Trilogy
 * Children of the Jedi
 * Darksaber
 * ''Planet of Twilight
 * The Crystal Star
 * The Black Fleet Crisis
 * The New Rebellion
 * Corellian Trilogy
 * The Hand of Thrawn Duology
 * Star Wars: Union
 * Young Jedi Knights
 * New Jedi Order
 * Dark Nest Trilogy
 * Betrayal