16 definitions by Official_SW Definitions_

The more the Empire tightened its grip on the people of the galaxy, the harder the Alliance to Restore the Republic fought. Born shortly after Palpatine's transformation of the Old Republic into the New Order, the Alliance started as little more than a rag-tag group of freedom fighters woefully under-equipped to challenge an enemy as mighty as the Galactic Empire. The continued injustices of the Empire, however, brought many into the Rebellion's fold.

As it grew, so to did its arsenal. To combat the Imperial starfleet, the Alliance's hotshot pilots made do with battle-worn yet effective craft like X-wing and Y-wing starfighters.

The Rebel Alliance scored a major victory over the Empire by using stolen technical plans to formulate an attack strategy capable of destroying the Empire's most fearsome weapon: the Death Star. During the next three years, the core group of Alliance commanders fled from base to base, constantly eluding the Empire's forces.

The Alliance eventually established a central base on the ice planet of Hoth. Imperial probes soon discovered the outpost, code-named Echo Base. The discovery precipitated the Battle of Hoth, wherein the High Command group was nearly destroyed. After the evacuation of the base, the Rebel leaders, including the Alliance's architect Mon Mothma, stayed with the ever-mobile and always-growing Alliance Fleet.

The joining of the Mon Calamari people into the Alliance bolstered the Rebellion's ranks, and brought badly needed capital ships into the fleet. Finally, about a year after the defeat at Hoth, the Rebellion was poised to make an all-out strike against the Empire. The opportunity came at the Battle of Endor. Despite it being an Imperial trap, the Rebels persevered. The conflict ended with the death of Emperor Palpatine, the destruction of the second Death Star, the scattering of the Imperial Fleet, and end of the New Order's long reign of oppression.
Related: --X-Wing Starfighter-- --Y-Wing Starfighter-- --A-Wing Starfighter-- --B-Wing Starfighter-- --Millennium Falcon-- --Mon Calamari Cruiser --Yavin 4--
by Official_SW Definitions_ December 5, 2004
Get the --Rebel Alliance-- mug.
Within three years of the Death Star's demise, the Galactic Empire again proved its evil nature with the construction of a second Death Star in a remote region of space. Fortunately for the galaxy, the Empire never completed this monstrosity. Word of its construction was spread through the Rebel ranks by Bothan spies. The Alliance was able to pinpoint the exact location of Death Star's construction, and mount a pre-emptive strike to destroy the station.

The leaked information was all a ruse. The scheming Emperor Palpatine engineered the Rebellion's discovery of the Death Star in the hopes of trapping the growing Rebel fleet. The second Death Star would not be as vulnerable as the Rebels believed.

To ensure that the Death Star would destroy the lured Alliance fleet, Palpatine entrusted the supervision of its final phase of construction to his Sith apprentice, Lord Darth Vader. Vader motivated the Death Star's commander, Moff Jerjerrod, to see that the battle station was operational when the Emperor arrived for his inspection tour.

The second Death Star was not a complete sphere. Though much of the battle station's recognizable shape was visible, there were huge sections of exposed superstructure and visible skeleton. To protect the half-completed and immobile station during its construction, the Empire projected an immense deflector shield from the nearby forest moon of Endor. The shield was strong enough to protect any breach from both capital and starfighter-class ships.

The Alliance sent a commando team to land on the moon and deactivate the shield generator while the Rebel fleet emerged from hyperspace to destroy the station. Unlike the previous Death Star, whose reactor core was accessible only from a two meter wide exhaust port, the second Death Star's heart had to be destroyed by actually flying into the superstructure and detonating the collosal power plant.

The commando team was waylaid by Imperials and the Rebel fleet arrived to find the deflector shield intact. Worse yet, the superlaser was operational, and began destroying Rebel Mon Calamari cruisers with each blast. General Lando Calrissian came up with a daring and foolhardy tactic to engage the Imperial fleet at point-blank range, thus limiting the Death Stars available targets.

Aided by the native Ewoks of Endor, the Rebels were able to infiltrate and destroy the shield generator complex. With the shield down, General Calrissian led the Alliance starfighters into the inner recesses of the Death Star. There, he and Wedge Antilles loosed a volley of ordnance that began an immense fireball that tore apart the station.

Emperor Palpatine's body was consumed in the explosion. The Imperial fleet never recovered from the fiasco. What was to be the Rebel Alliance's demise instead turned into the death of the Empire. As firey fragments of the battle station burned away in Endor's atmosphere, the celebratory cheers of freedom rang throughout the forests, and indeed, the entire galaxy.
Related: --Galactic Empire-- --Death Star-- --Super Star Destroyer-- --Endor--
by Official_SW Definitions_ December 5, 2004
Get the --Death Star II-- mug.