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, shortly before the latter kills the former

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. Decades later, the vessel re-entered conflict against the Sith by serving Organa's Resistance, again playing a crucial role.

Description
The ship was mostly white, as with many CR90 corvettes, and distinctly 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 four 12-passenger and eight smaller escape pods.

Alderaanian Corvette
The ship was used by Bail 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.

In 5 BBY, the Spectres returned C-3PO and R2-D2 to Bail 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 mission, to Wobani, where she wound up evacuating 100 refugees under the pretense 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.

Galactic Civil War
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. 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 headed to Tatooine. The crew did everything in its power to keep the ship running due to the damage, and Captain Raymus Antilles planned to ditch the corvette on Tatooine and acquire a new ship to complete their journey. Eight minutes&mdash;three-quarters of a parsec&mdash;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. Antilles gave the order for the civilians aboard to launch in the escape pod. After her capture, Princess Leia briefly spotted the ship docked within one of the hangars of the Devastator. Soon thereafter, the Imperials mostly destroyed the Tantive IV, although it remained salvageable enough to be located, restored and returned to Leia many years later.

Before the corvette's destruction, R2-D2 and C-3PO, the former carrying the stolen plans, escaped to Tatooine on one of the ship's escape pods. Lieutenant Ciena Ree relented from destroying the pod under the orders from her captain upon realizing that it carried no life-forms. The Empire then announced that the corvette had been destroyed in a catastrophic meteor collision.

Lost
"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 menace of the First Order, recounted her experiences, thinking that she never learned what happened to the crew of the Tantive IV.

Return
Many years after the end of the Galactic Civil War, a former Imperial senator discovered the remains of the Tantive IV lying decrepit in a hangar in the Yarma system. Sympathetic to Leia's cause, the senator repaired the former consular ship and returned it to her as a gift. Leia used the vessel as her personal flagship from the Resistance base on Ajan Kloss. Given the lack of barracks on the moon, most of the Resistance support crew lived and slept aboard the Tantive IV when not on duty. The starship was later used by the Resistance in the final battle against the Sith on Exegol.

Behind the scenes
The Tantive IV first appeared in the 1977 film Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope.

The design of the ship was originally to be used for the Millennium Falcon, but it was found that both the name and the spacecraft were too similar to the Eagle Transporter from concurrent television series Space: 1999. Thus it was modified and used for the Tantive IV, which had less screen time and didn't have a bird-related name.

Non-canon appearances

 * Star Wars Epic Yarns: A New Hope