The Disaster The Disaster , otherwise known as the Destruction of Alderaan , was the name given to the destruction of the planet Alderaan in the Coruscant Core at the hands of the Galactic Empire during the Galactic Civil War . Before the Disaster , the Rebel Alliance stole the plans for the Death Star , the Empire ' s deep - space mobile battle station . Prince ss Leia Organa of Alderaan was captured during an Imperial attempt to intercept the plans , and she was brought aboard the Death Star following her capture aboard the " Tantive IV " above the desert world of Tatooine . Once aboard , the young princess was tortured in the hopes that the Empire could extract the location of the Rebel base from her . Organa refused , and the station ' s commander , Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin , Governor of the Outer Rim Territories , threatened to use the Death Star to destroy Alderaan if she did not comply . Organa provided a false location , and although Tarkin believed her , he nonetheless destroyed Alderaan — and the billions of people living there — to demonstrate the station ' s power to the galaxy . The destruction of Alderaan and the massive loss of life disturbance through the Force , weakening those who felt it . Alderaanian s who were off - world at the time took to calling Alderaan ' s destruction " the Disaster . " Riots broke out in Alderaanian immigrant areas of the planet Coruscant , and the Empire killed many rioters and arrested many more immigrants . The Rebellion was ultimately able to prevent further planets from being destroyed when the Rebel pilot Luke Skywalker destroyed the Death Star during the Battle of Yavin . After the battle , Organa set out to find surviving Alderaanians in order to preserve what remained of the planet ' s culture . Prelude . During the Clone Wars , a trio of Jedi — Obi - Wan Kenobi , Anakin Skywalker , and Ahsoka Tano — were brought to the realm of Mortis by a group of Force wielder s who dwelled there . These beings believed that Skywalker was the Chosen One who would one day bring balance to the Force and destroy the Sith . One of the beings , the Son — a representation of the dark side of the Force — showed Skywalker a vision of the Jedi Knight ' s future as Darth Vader , a Dark Lord of the Sith . In the vision , Skywalker witnessed the destruction of the planet Alderaan , an influential member world within the Galactic Republic . Skywalker briefly turned to the dark side as a result of the vision , but he gave up the dark side and his memory of the vision was erased . Throughout the Clone Wars , Alderaan and its representative in the Galactic Senate , Senator Bail Organa , were publicly opposed to the war effort against the Confederacy of Independent Systems . At the end of the war , Darth Sidious — the Dark Lord of the Sith publicly known as Supreme Chancellor Palpatine transformed the Republic into the Galactic Empire . In the years that followed , the Empire considered Alderaan to be a hotbed of rebellious activity , and it warned Imperial citizens that Alderaan was a dangerous world intent on ending the security that the Empire supposedly brought to the galaxy . Alderaan became a founding member of the Alliance to Restore the Republic , a Rebel Alliance opposed to the Imperial regime . During the Galactic Civil War , the Rebels stole the technical plans for the Death Star , a deep space mobile battle station capable of destroying entire planets . Prince ss Leia Organa , the adoptive daughter of Bail and secretly the daughter of Darth Vader , was entrusted with bringing the plans to Kenobi , who had gone into exile on the desert world of Tatooine . The princess was captured during a battle over Tatooine , but two droid s — R2 - D2 and C - 3PO — escaped the princess ' ship , the " Tantive IV " , and were able to bring the plans to Kenobi . The Jedi Master , along with Luke Skywalker — secretly Vader ' s son , and Leia ' s twin brother — and the two droids , set out to bring the stolen plans to Bail on Alderaan . They hired the " Millennium Falcon " , captain ed by the smuggler Han Solo and co - pilot ed by the Wookiee Chewbacca , to give them passage to Alderaan . The Disaster . Following her capture , the princess was brought aboard the Death Star , where she was interrogated and torture d by Darth Vader in the hopes that she would reveal the location of the Rebel base , which was located in the Great Temple on Yavin 4 . The torture was ineffective , and Leia refused to give up the location of the Rebellion . In order to persuade her to give up the information , as well as to finally demonstrate the power of the Death Star to the galaxy , Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin — Governor of the Outer Rim Territories and the commander of the Death Star — ordered that the station set course for Alderaan . Upon the station ' s arrival at Alderaan , Leia was brought to the Death Star ' s overbridge where Tarkin threatened to destroy the planet if she did not comply the Empire ' s demands to provide the location of the Rebellion . Leia was not prepared to give up the Rebels , but she also did not want to lose her homeworld and the millions of people who lived there . As a result , she lied to Tarkin and told him that the Rebel base was located on Dantooine . Although Tarkin believed her , he still intended to make use of the weapon ; whereas Dantooine was too remote to give an effective demonstration of the Death Star ' s power , he saw Alderaan as the perfect target . Tarkin gave the order to fire upon Alderaan , and the Death Star ' s superlaser destroyed the planet in second s , sending out a shockwave in all directions . The means of destruction fulfilled the vision that Anakin had seen on Mortis years earlier . As a result of its destruction , all that remained of the planet was a debris field . The two billion people living on the planet were killed , including Viceroy Bail Organa and his wife Queen Breha . Bail and Breha were both in the Royal Palace in the capital of Aldera at the time , and saw the Death Star eclipse the sun beforehand . Bail then immediately realized what was about to happen when he saw this , and he and his wife died together , hoping that their daughter was still alive , as the last they had heard of her was that the " Tantive IV " had been destroyed . The destruction was powerful enough that it sent a massive disturbance through the Force , one that Kenobi felt aboard the " Millennium Falcon " . Although he did not know what had happened , he could feel in the Force that millions of voices cried out in terror before they were silenced — the moment of the planet ' s destruction . All Imperials aboard the Death Star were ordered to watch Alderaan ' s destruction either by eye or on a screen . Thane Kyrell , Ciena Ree , Nash Windrider , and Jude Edivon , recent graduates of the Royal Imperial Academy , were present on the station and witnessed the destruction . Horrified by the Empire ' s ruthlessness , Kyrell later defected to join the Rebel Alliance . While sharing Thane ' s horror , Ree was unable to abandon her oath to the Empire and would remain loyal even until the Battle of Jakku five years later . While the Alderaanian Windrider was distraught by the destruction of his homeworld , it ultimately led him to rededicate his life to the Empire . He eventually rationalized his homeworld ' s destruction as necessary to the security of the Empire , and became ruthlessly dedicated to upholding its tyrannical rule . Meanwhile , Edivon rationalized that the destruction of Alderaan saved many lives from being killed in a war , though she herself struggled to accept this . Despite Edivon ' s prediction , the planet ' s destruction only strengthened the Alliance ' s resolve to overthrow the Empire and avenge the billions murdered . She later identified a flaw in the Death Star ' s design , but failed to convince her superiors to order an evacuation . Jude later perished during the Battle of Yavin . Aftermath . Following Alderaan ' s destruction , Imperial forces investigated Leia ' s claim that the Rebels were on Dantooine . Although they found the remains of a base , it had been abandoned for some time . Meanwhile , the " Millennium Falcon " had entered the debris field and was captured by the Death Star , forcing its passengers and crew to find a means of escape . While Kenobi disabled the tractor beam that trapped the ship , Luke set off with Solo and Chewbacca to rescue Leia . They fought their way out of the Detention Level and returned to the " Falcon " , where they witnessed Kenobi engage in lightsaber combat with Vader . To give the Rebels a chance to escape , and to achieve immortality , Kenobi allowed Vader to kill him . The Rebels escaped to the base on Yavin 4 , where the Empire followed them . Having analyzed the Death Star plans , the Rebels mounted the Battle of Yavin , in which Luke destroyed the Death Star , killing Tarkin and all Imperial personnel onboard . In the days after the planet ' s destruction , word spread that Alderaan had been destroyed . Alderaanian s who were off - world at the time took to calling their world ' s destruction " the Disaster . " Vigils were held amongst the Alderaanian immigrant population on Level 3204 on Imperial Center , the capital planet of the Empire , in order to grieve for the missing and dead Alderaanians . When it became apparent through official government statements and pirate d newsfeeds that the Empire had destroyed the planet , the vigils turned into riots , with calls for justice and revolution against the Empire . At first , many rioters were killed . Soon , however , Imperial stormtrooper s and Coruscant underworld police arrested first - generation Alderaanians , justifying the arrests by saying that they needed to be questioned due to reports of so - called Rebel spies attempting to foment rebellion . Rumors suggested that second - generation Alderaanians were being given the benefit of the doubt and relocated . Following the Battle of Yavin , Evaan Verlaine , a pilot in the Rebel Alliance and one of the surviving Alderaanians , informed Leia that the Empire had begun targeting the remaining Alderaanians . To preserve what was left of her people and her culture , Leia set out with Evaan to locate and save her people from the Empire . Several weeks later , the Rebel Alliance assaulted Cymoon 1 in order to destroy Weapons Factory Alpha , perhaps the largest weapons factory in the galaxy . During the assault , Leia ordered Solo to kill Vader in order to avenge the death of Kenobi and the destruction of Alderaan . Vader survived the attack , however , with only minor injuries . Behind the scenes . The Disaster was first depicted in the 1977 film , written and directed by " Star Wars " creator George Lucas . Several decades later , in 2011 , a vision of the future that depicted the Disaster was shown in " Ghosts of Mortis , " the seventeenth episode of the of the animated television series " " . The aftermath of the planet ' s destruction has been depicted in a number of canon sources beginning in 2014 , including the short story " One Thousand Levels Down " — in which the name " Disaster " was first given — as well as the Marvel comic book mini - series " " .