Endor/Legends

The Forest Moon of Endor (also known as Endor and the Sanctuary Moon) was a moon orbiting the gas giant planet of Endor. The forest moon is notable for being the native home of the Ewoks, and being the location of the last major battle in the Galactic Civil War. Due to its proximity to the inhospitable Unknown Regions, Endor was a relatively quiet planetoid until the latter event.

Terrain
Endor's terrain was largely covered by massive, tightly-knit forests. However, the Forest Moon also contained vast dry deserts and grassy plains, small oceans, secluded lakes, and mountain ranges. The climate on the Forest Moon was temperate and mild, with polar caps regulating the sea levels.

Species
The forest moon was home to the Ewoks, famous for helping defeat the Empire at the Battle of Endor. However, it was also home to many other sentient species including deadly giant Goraxes, tall and timid Yuzzums, rodentlike Teeks, vicious condor dragons, and a settlement of reptilian Sanyassan Marauders from offworld.

Pre-Imperial
Endor was set aside as a protected nature reserve during the Old Republic, giving it the name Sanctuary Moon. Few spacers had ever heard of Endor, let alone visited the moon. Of those who had, there were two types: those who continued on their way, not wanting to waste their time on such an unimportant puffball of a moon and those who had crash-landed in the forests due to the stellar anomalies, such as the Endor Gate black hole, in the area. These travelers were forced to scrabble for food and shelter along with the natives.

As ships disappeared in the region, the Endor moon earned a reputation as a "desert island in space," and was usually given a wide berth.

The moon did have a Ffib outpost established before the Clone Wars. During the Clone Wars, it had a Separatist base, discovered by Aayla Secura.

Imperial Survey
When thousands of survey teams were sent by the Emperor to scout locations for the new Death Star’s construction site, Endor was one of the potential locations. The forest moon met the strict requirements demanded by no less a person than Darth Vader: the location must be remote, and must have a diverse geosphere capable of sustaining human life. Another advantage was its remoteness: the Moddell sector was far from most Imperial outposts. Lord Vader thought that the Rebellion wouldn’t expect a new base to be hidden so far from the Empire’s seat of power.

The first Imperial scouting expedition, Survey Team IX3244-B, was led by Captain Toss, who recommended the Endor moon even before his team had explored the surface. The native Ewoks led his team around in circles, and Lt. Kiviett recommended that the Ewoks be studied further. He felt they were a potential threat to the new base. Toss, wanting the credit for discovering the new Death Star construction site, ignored him.

The lack of a detail report displeased the Emperor who authorized the deployment of a second scouting expedition under Pfilbee Jhorn. Pfilbee Jhorn's team studied the Ewoks further and also discovered several other species including the Teeks, Goraxes, Yuzzums and the Sanyassan colony. In the end, only Pfilbee and two others survived the mission and went offworld.

The "harmless" Ewoks encountered by the initial team did not go unnoticed by others in the Imperial hierarchy. Dr. Raegar, a servant of the Emperor, believed that these Ewoks guarded a powerful artifact he had been seeking: the Sunstar. Though he had originally intended to present the Sunstar to Emperor Palpatine, Raegar decided that with such a powerful artifact in his possession, he could overthrow Palpatine and rule the galaxy himself. He used the Sunstar to construct a devastating weapon.

The incident ended disastrously for Raegar, as Ewoks boarded his ship, stole the Sunstar and escaped back to Endor. Admiral Kazz, who had never believed in the Sunstar's power to begin with, arrested Raegar for treason. The would-be-emperor was dragged kicking and screaming into the Emperor's shuttle for execution. Palpatine, for his part, was curious to learn more of this forest moon.

In retrospect, constructing an important secret installation on a planetoid already teeming with intelligent life may not have been the smartest decision the Empire ever made. There are over a dozen forms of sentient life on Endor, though only a small percentage of them are non-Ewoks, and many may have originated from offworld. The move was actually intentional on Palpatine’s part: by placing the construction site over a protected sanctuary moon, he made the Alliance’s decision to attack a devastatingly poignant one. In the end, of course, the Emperor’s insidious nature proved his undoing: without the “wildlife” he threatened, the Rebels would never have won the Battle of Endor. The Empire established an outpost on the Sanctuary Moon, and it was from here that preparations were made so that the construction site for the second Death Star could be moved there. When Imperial teams arrived to construct the shield generator complex and other installations, they discovered Alliance Captain Junas Turner, who had come to the moon to locate the new Death Star. He was taken captive and sent to the automated prison station Balis-Baurgh, along with an Ewok named Grael. They would later escape, but it was too late to inform the Rebellion of the threat.

Though the Sunstar was now safely returned to Bright Tree Village, its power had not prevented Raegar from stealing it, and so the Ewoks avoided the Empire whenever possible. They despised the crimes against nature perpetuated by the construction teams for the generator complex, but could see no way to fight against such powerful beings...particularly Darth Vader, who swept several Ewoks away on a wave of flame.

This attitude changed when Wicket W. Warrick spotted an AT-ST tumbling over the Yawari cliffs. This proved to the tribal elders that the invaders could be killed. On Wicket’s recommendation, existing traps for the giant Gorax were modified to combat the Imperials.

The Battle of Endor
As the Galactic Civil War drew to a close in the years of 3-4 ABY, a Rebel Alliance strike team, led by Dash Rendar and Luke Skywalker, captured information from the cruiser Suprosa at Kothlis. It confirmed the existence of a second Death Star, being constructed over the moon of Endor. It was not realized then, but Emperor Palpatine had purposely allowed the plans to be captured, so that the Rebels could be coaxed into a trap.

The Rebel fleet amassed near Sullust and was addressed by Mon Mothma. She and Admiral Ackbar informed the battle-weary freedom fighters that the Emperor himself would be aboard the station, further emphasizing the need to win the battle. The entire operation was orchestrated to coordinate the fleet, commanded by Ackbar, and a substantial starfighter force, led by Lando Calrissian to jump to Endor through hyperspace and arrive to a shieldless, incomplete Death Star. A commando team would be sent on ahead in a coup-de-main (or, clandestine operation) and disable the shield generator and projector housed on the Endor moon.

The commando team, led by Han Solo, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, and Luke Skywalker, used the stolen Imperial shuttle Tydirium to slip past Imperial defenses and land on the moon. After speederbike chases, Leia going missing, and other confusions, the team fell into a primitive trap set by the main indiginous species, the Ewoks. At first they saw C-3PO as a deity, and prepared to sacrifice the main team in celebration to the droid. Leia, who had been found and befriended by the Ewoks, saved them. The Ewoks would play a pivotal part in the forthcoming battle.

The Rebel fleet jumped insystem, prepared to assault the Death Star. With the shield still up, a massive Imperial fleet revealed itself, pinning the Rebels between them and the shield, and the climatic battle began. Luke, who had voluntarily allowed his capture by Imperials to meet Darth Vader (Anakin Skywalker) in hopes up turning him back to the light, watched from the Emperor's tower on the Death Star as Palpatine's trap unfolded. On the moon below, Han Solo and the team had been captured. Things looked grave as the shield remained up, and Ackbar ordered the only thing the fleet could do: attack the Imperial Fleet.



But fortunes changed. The Ewoks, thanks to Leia's diplomatic skills, attacked the groundside Stormtrooper legions, and the Rebel commandos took advantage of the confusion. Despite early setbacks, the Ewoks and the commandos beat the Empire through guerilla tactics, but the Ewoks' presence was the catalyst needed. In space, the fleet succeeded beyond all odds in attacking the Imperial Fleet. Several vessels, including the Super Star Destroyer Executor, fell under the guns of the Rebel Fleet. Solo's team finally destroyed the shield generator; Lando Calrissian, Tycho Celchu, Wedge Antilles, and a handful of other pilots descended into the now shieldless battle-station's innards to destroy the core; and Luke Skywalker, who witnessed Anakin Skywalker redeem himself from the specter of Darth Vader and kill Emperor Palpatine, barely escaped with a now dying Anakin Skywalker. It was a victorious day for the Rebellion.

Without a doubt, all of the above could have never happened without the help of the Ewoks. The small, primitive species had proven beyond a doubt that the one did not need a blaster or lightsaber to defeat an empire: just a heart full of courage, and a desire to conquer evil.

Behind the scenes
The planet Endor was never visible in any scenes in Return of the Jedi set on the forest moon, a fact which the novelization explains by asserting that it was destroyed some time earlier, and that the moon now orbits its star in a planetary orbit of its own.

It should also be noted that in two of the space battle scenes, a pinkish planet can be seen in the background, in the vicinity of the forest moon. Another shot showing TIE fighters flying towards the Death Star (and camera) with several Star Destroyers in the background shows the pinkish planet. This, coupled with the fact that a moon without a planet should itself be defined as a planet in its own right, has caused some fans to speculate that this pinkish planet is in fact Endor, and the novel is wrong. In addition, a large body, probably the planet Endor, can be seen in the sky during some scenes in the two Ewok telefilms (Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure and Ewoks: The Battle for Endor), though this does not closely resemble the planet seen in Return of the Jedi.

Some fans with some knowledge of physics have noted that if the destruction of the Death Star II actually occurred as depicted, the moon would have been rendered uninhabitable. This is known as the Endorian Holocaust. There is still a great deal of speculation on this point, though several solutions have been suggested, such as the Rebellion bringing large-scale, portable shield generators to protect the moon from radioactive fallout.

Origins

 * Earlier drafts of Return of the Jedi first identified the forest moon as Green Moon, and later Jus-Endor. Originally, Green Moon was meant to be orbiting Had Abbadon - now known as Coruscant - along with two Death Stars under construction.
 * "Endor" is the Hebrew name of a city of ancient Canaan mentioned in the Bible. Other planets in the Endor system have similar names (Dor and Megiddo) as does the system's star (Ibleam).
 * Some fans believe that it is named after J.R.R. Tolkien's Endor, the Elvish name of Middle-earth, probably an allusion to the similarity between Ewoks and Hobbits, or the moon's tall foliage and the mellyrn of Lothlórien.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Battlefront
 * Star Wars Battlefront II
 * Wicket Finds a Way: An Ewok Adventure
 * Star Wars: Ewoks
 * Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided
 * Star Wars: Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader
 * Star Wars: Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike
 * Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure
 * Ewoks: The Battle for Endor
 * Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
 * X-wing: Rogue Leader
 * Marvel Star Wars 81: Jawas of Doom
 * Marvel Star Wars 82: Diplomacy
 * Marvel Star Wars 85: The Hero
 * Marvel Star Wars 90: The Choice
 * Marvel Star Wars 92: The Dream
 * Marvel Star Wars 94: Small Wars
 * Marvel Star Wars 95: No Zeltrons
 * Marvel Star Wars 97: Escape
 * Marvel Star Wars 99: Touch of the Goddess
 * Marvel Star Wars 100: First Strike
 * Marvel Star Wars 101: Far, Far Away
 * Return of the Ewok