Death Star plans/Legends

"What's so important? What's he carrying?"

- Han Solo

The Death Star plans were the blueprints of the first Death Star, a superweapon created by Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin for the Galactic Empire.

The plans
The idea for the Death Star began when the Confederacy of Independent Systems designed the Ultimate Weapon. Poggle the Lesser possessed the original (or a copy) of the plans, which he handed to Darth Tyranus during the Battle of Geonosis.

Tyranus attempted to flee the planet and go to Coruscant, but he was intercepted by Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker and Yoda; Tyranus defeated the two knights, however Yoda, in order to save the other two, let Tyranus escape with the plans. It is thought that should he make a different choice, he would lose the lives of the two Jedi, but save billions of lives. The future of the Galaxy was judged by this decision.

Tyranus managed to arrive on The Works of Coruscant and he delivered the schematics personally to Darth Sidious. Once the Clone Wars were over, Palpatine shaped this idea for his own purposes. Blueprints were used as a basis for construction of the station, and, after the Death Star's completion, the plans became a prime target for the Rebellion, whose members hoped to find and exploit a weakness in the superweapon.

The Rebel Alliance acquires the plans
Acquiring the Death Star plans was a necessary phase of Operation Skyhook: the effort to destroy the Death Star. Rebel forces would not locate the Death Star schematics in a single document, but they would learn information about the dreaded station in bits and pieces&mdash;from a combination of heroes&mdash;placing these pieces together to form a full technical readout.

Note that the exact order of the following events is not wholly understood and they are given only as indicative.

Discoveries at Orron III and AX-235
The Rebellion after the Operation Strike Fear, got hints about the existence of a massive Imperial construction. A BFF-1 bulk freighter called Phoenix carried a bunch of stolen communication satellites from the base of Orron III. The satellites were spread by Jeffrey in the Cron Drift to intercept Imperial transmissions.

They first learned of the Death Star's existence when their outpost of AX-235 intercepted the station's schematics. Keyan Farlander, an X-wing pilot, later delivered these plans to the Tantive IV.

Mission to Danuta


Kyle Katarn, a Rebel mercenary recently converted from the Empire - a process which dated back to the Battle of AX-456 -, was assigned to infiltrate an Imperial outpost on Danuta and steal a memory matrix there that contained plans for the Death Star. With the aid of Jan Ors and Meck Odom, Katarn escaped the facility and transmitted this set of the plans to Rebel spies in the Toprawa system, where it was eventually passed to Princess Leia on the Tantive IV.

Specifically, the memory matrix stolen from Danuta contained the Death Star's hull design, life support infrastructure, engineering schematics, and a complete map of its offensive and defensive weapons emplacements.

Uprising and Battle of Polis Massa
A section of the plans were stolen from the Empire during a Rebel jail break inside the completed Death Star. Stormtroopers in the 501st Legion, who had been guarding the plans onboard the Death Star, crushed the uprising and were thought to have recovered the plans. However, some prisoners had managed to transmit one copy to rebel forces on Polis Massa.

The 501st Legion was sent to retrieve the plans that had been transmitted to Polis Massa. Once there, the 501st was caught up in a firefight with the Rebellion. By the time the 501st got to the plans, a copy had already been beamed from Polis Massa to the Tantive IV.

Battle of Toprawa
Often considered the first Rebel victory against the Empire, the heaviest fighting in this battle was a diversionary attack. It was during the battle that rebel spy Havet Storm used his position within the Imperial research station on Toprawa to secure the plans.

The information recovered at Toprawa contained the Death Star's hull design and life support infrastructure (information redundant with that obtained from Danuta), but the real prize lay in the plans for the Death Star's superlaser, which was to be its most devastating weapon.

R2-D2's mission
Having received the various sets of blueprints, the Rebels on Tantive IV were able to recreate a full tactical readout of the Death Star. They attempted to deliver this readout to the Star Cruiser Liberty, but a sudden appearance of the Star Destroyer Immortal caused the transfer to stop; Tantive IV moved to Tatooine to reach Obi-Wan Kenobi so that he could bring it to Bail Organa on Alderaan. Before they could succeed, though, Darth Vader led a strike against the ship by the 501st Legion, who had chased a set of the plans from the Death Star to Polis Massa to Tantive IV. Princess Leia, knowing the Rebels had no hope of defeating Vader's forces, placed the plans within the astro-mech droid R2-D2, programmed him to deliver them with a message to Obi-Wan Kenobi on Tatooine, and then, after being captured by Vader, denied that Tantive IV had ever received such plans.

R2-D2, the persevering droid he was, boarded an escape pod with C-3PO and journeyed through the sands of Tatooine to fulfill his mission. The plans were nearly in danger of being lost forever when Jawas ambushed and enslaved R2, but a string of Force-inspired events led R2 to the ownership of Owen Lars. R2 convinced Lars's nephew Luke Skywalker to remove the droid's restraining bolt, suggesting that doing so was the only way R2 could access the rest of Princess Leia's message (which Luke had accidentally discovered), but it was not long after Luke had done so that R2 had taken the opportunity to escape, seeking out General Kenobi. Luke and C-3PO chased R2 down, after which they stumbled across a group of Sand People. Again the plans were nearly doomed, but the Sand People scattered at the arrival of one they knew and feared: Obi-Wan Kenobi. R2-D2 had completed his task.

The trail to Yavin
Leia's message conveyed to Obi-Wan the urgency of bringing R2 to Bail Organa. Joined by Luke and C-3PO, they hired the mercenary Han Solo and Chewbacca to smuggle them to Alderaan on the Millennium Falcon, and they escaped from Mos Eisley spaceport in a fierce firefight.

The plans, however, would never make it to Alderaan. In a demonstration of the Death Star's capabilities, Grand Moff Tarkin had ordered the planet destroyed, and the crew of the Falcon exited hyperspace only to find their destination missing, while a lone TIE fighter fled the scene. Han determined to destroy the fighter so that their location could not be reported, but following the fighter led the Falcon to the Death Star itself.

R2 was as close to the Imperials as he could be, and at one point he and C-3PO were even forced to interact with a squad of stormtroopers. Still, none of the soldiers realized that the little droid the Empire had been searching for was on the very station it posed so dangerous a threat to. When the crew of the Falcon escaped with Princess Leia and headed to Yavin 4, R2 and the precious plans he carried were with them.

Having arrived on Yavin 4, the Death Star plans were studied by General Jan Dodonna and other Rebel officers in the hope of finding an exploitable weakness. They found it in the form of a small thermal exhaust port which, if hit directly by a proton torpedo, would trigger a chain reaction destroying the battle station. This is precisely what Luke Skywalker did in the proceeding Battle of Yavin.

Behind the scenes
In the early production of the original movie, the hollow dish was designed to be on the equator, but then it was decided to be on the 'northern' hemisphere. However this old design can still be seen in the grid plan animations seen in the movie. This is because the animation was created before the prop designers decided to change it,creating a blooper. Explanations like that the plans represent an earlier version are invalid, since the original plan in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones shows the "later" form.

A contradiction of sorts exists concerning the the Battle of Toprawa. Vermillion, the leader of the Rebel resistance cell on Toprawa, was critically injured when attempting to send the Death Star Laser plans to the Tantive IV, and Havet Storm finishes the transmission. However, in the novel Rebel Dawn, Bria Tharen, Han Solo's first love, is the leader of the Red Hand Squadron and they are the ones responsible for transmitting the plans from Toprawa.

Unfortunately, the exact order of events and the way the multiple plans were combined by the Rebels, are no way understood so far. One major reason for this is that, like fighting in the Battle of Hoth, stealing or protecting the Death Star plans has become a playable feature in several Star Wars video games, including Star Wars: X-wing, Star Wars: Dark Forces, Star Wars: Battlefront II, and the currently unreleased Star Wars: Lethal Alliance. These as well as non-game sources on the obtaining seem to not have in mind older ones, so a future retcon should combine all sources in one cohesive storyline.

In the meantime, the Star Wars Databank article on the Death Star acknowledges the contributions of Kyle Katarn, Keyan Farlander, "Rebel spies in the Toprawa system", and other unnamed heroes. The Death Star Uprising and 501st Legion are both mentioned, but the article makes no reference to the plans even being involved in this jailbreak.

The upcoming novel Death Star may resolve these discrepancies.

The Lethal Alliance game may also work to resolve these discrepancies (or further complicate them), as it will follow Rianna Saren's role in stealing the Death Star plans. As it is said to include Kyle Katarn, Danuta, Despayre, and the Death Star itself as a setting, the game has sound potential to incorporate elements presented in X-wing, Dark Forces, and/or Battlefront II.

Appearances

 * Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
 * A Death Star is Born
 * Star Wars: X-wing
 * Star Wars: Battlefront II
 * Star Wars: Dark Forces
 * Star Wars: Rebel Assault
 * The Lost Jedi Adventure Game Book
 * Rebel Dawn
 * Resurrection
 * Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope