Hoth/Legends

"There isn't enough life on this ice cube to fill a space cruiser."

- Han Solo

Hoth was the sixth planet of the remote Hoth system and was isolated desolate and ice-bound. It became famous as the one-time location of a Rebel Alliance base during the Galactic Civil War.

Geology, geography and ecology


Located in the Granita Cluster, in the Hoth Quadrant of the Anoat Sector, along the Ison Corridor, Hoth orbited the blue-white star Hoth on a wide elliptical orbit. Beyond Hoth was a large asteroid belt, known as the Hoth Asteroid Field, from which small asteroids regularly broke off, crashing into Hoth’s surface as meteorites. The planet consisted of a molten metallic core with dichotomous crust. Its surface is mostly covered by a frozen ocean, except where volcanically active mountain ranges pierce its surface. Massive oceanic currents beneath the southern hemisphere and the tidal pull of Hoth’s three moons caused regular seismic activity, resulting in a constantly shifting landscape of caves and tunnels.

Its orbit and axial tilt resulted in consistently icy weather patterns. Daytime temperatures reached levels unbearable to most species and rarely rose above freezing, even in the planet's relatively mild equatorial regions. The gale force winds and intense snowstorms that regularly wracked the windswept surface magnified the extreme cold of Hoth.

Buried deep in Hoth’s equatorial region was a fissure range where lumni-spice grew. The frigid biosphere included a minimal food chain: the predator wampas, the omnivore tauntauns, Hoth hogs, a few rodent species, ice worms and lichens.

The average planetary temperature was around -61ºC; however at Echo Base, located near the planet's equator, daytime temperatures reached -32ºC; however night-time temperatures got as low as -60.

History


Hoth was possibly named after the Jedi Hoth. The swamp wampas of Dromund Kaas were proven by scientists to be descended from the wampas of Hoth. It is possible that wampas were brought to Dromund Kaas during the New Sith Wars, though the truth remains a mystery.

Before its use by the Rebel Alliance, the planet was relatively unknown and unvisited. A few pirates and smugglers, such as Raskar, attempted to liberate the valuable lumni-spice, but were unsuccessful. Salmakk had a smuggling base on the planet in the caves that later became Echo Base.

After the Battle of Yavin, the Habassa hinted the Rebel Alliance about the Hoth system as a candidate for their new base.

When Luke Skywalker accidentally discovered Hoth while fleeing Imperial forces shortly after the Battle of Yavin, he recommended the ice world to Alliance High Command as a location. The asteroid belt provided a difficult barrier, the remoteness and near unbearable temperatures made it an unlikely candidate for Imperial probing, and the ever shifting caverns meant that it would be easy to move the base within the planet. After defeating the forces of smuggler Salmakk, the Alliance established Echo Base on Hoth. The base was built on the northern edge on the only livable temperate band near the equator. However, it was not long before Darth Vader’s Death Squadron discovered the Rebels and the Battle of Hoth ensued between Rebel and Imperial forces. The debris of the battlefield attracted the scavenger Arns Grimraker.



After the ground battle in 3 ABY, Hoth returned to a world of obscurity, visited mostly by poachers, smugglers, xenobiologists, and the occasional tourist. An Imperial prison was also located on Hoth at some point. The Empire captured numerous wampas and from their base stock bioengineered the cliff wampas which the Imperials used to guard their facilities on Gall.

Kyle Katarn and Jaden Korr later located an Empire Reborn base on the planet, and Luke Skywalker visited the planet to attempt to regain Callista's Force powers back. On his return, Luke happened to come across One-arm, the Wampa that captured him prior to the Battle of Hoth.

Due to overhunting, both the tauntaun and the wampa became endangered. Under the Galactic Alliance, the Senate passed legislation protecting the wampa. Similar legislation was proposed for the tauntauns.

Behind the scenes
There is some controversy on how the Rebels discovered Hoth. A source says that Luke found it by chance while escaping an Imperial pursuit, while a game says that the Habassa aliens (who don't appear anywhere else outside Star Wars: X-wing) proposed its location to the Rebellion after they allied and the Rebels protected them against Imperial attacks.

It's supposed that the Habassa only proposed the system as a candidate location, and the planet itself was discovered by Luke, after the system was already known.