Battle of Turkana

The Battle of Turkana was a conflict between the Galactic Empire and the Rebel Alliance which occurred above Turkana during the Galactic Civil War.

The Rebels were secretly massing their forces in orbit of the planet Turkana, which consisted in several Mon Calamarian donated Star Cruisers being equipped with new rebel starfighter squadrons preparing to start service along the Rebel Alliance regular fleet.

This mainly Mon Calamarian task force was led by Admiral Ackbar, who was preparing a Rebel Alliance combined force system defense against an incoming Imperial fleet. The Imperial Navy fleet consisted in ten Star Destroyers led by interim commander Captain Lennox which arrived sooner than was expected by the rebel intelligence, surprising the rebels and letting the imperial fleet to promptly move to engage what was underestimated to be an easy objective of unprepared Rebel forces.

The Imperial Star Destroyers fleet first launched their fighters while the main group moved into position. However, the Imperials where surprised by the sudden appearance of the Rebel Alliance new fighter, the X-wing, having the prototypes been stolen during the previous Battle of Fresia and shortly after several others were produced by Incom's defected staff in enough numbers to put in service some squadrons ready for the battle inside the Calamari Cruiser' cavernous hangars. The Imperial forces, facing the combined firepower of the rough Calamari militarized ships and the new rebel starfighters while being unprepared for a counterattack, avoided a major conflict when Captain Lennox was forced to withdraw after losing several starfighters which included TIE fighters, TIE Bombers, and even a handful of limited produced TIE/I starfighters for combat tests.

After the battle, the Rebel Alliance proceeded to manufacture T-65 X-wing starfighters in great numbers. The discovery of the new TIE/I starfighters prototype side project for the TIE Advanced x1 alerted the Alliance High Command for the need to acquire limited numbers of the new updated version of the R-22 Spearhead as an experimental testbed for the Rebel Alliance new interceptor needs. The small starfighter was nicknamed "A-Wing" by the Rebels who piloted which became the basis for the famous RZ-1 A-wing interceptor. On the other hand, the Emperor responded with Operation Strike Fear which would torment the Rebellion for some time.

Behind the scenes
The intro cutscene uses a shot taken from The Empire Strikes Back, in which Lennox talks to an officer. It is not known if the cutscene has just 'borrowed' the screenshot from the movie, or actually intended to portray that particular character as present in that event.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: X-Wing