Starkiller Base Starkiller Base was a mobile ice planet located in the Unknown Regions that served as a stronghold of the First Order thirty years after the Battle of Endor . Commanded by an unofficial triumvirate of General Armitage Hux , Kylo Ren and Captain Phasma , it was armed with a superweapon capable of destroying entire star system s halfway across the galaxy . The First Order viewed this ability as an evolution of the planet - destroying capabilities of the Galactic Empire ' s Death Star designs , with the weapon serving as the ultimate culmination of Old Empire research into dark energy translations and hyperspace tunneling . The planet was ultimately destroyed by a Resistance attack due to a weak point exploited by pilot Poe Dameron , causing the implosion of the entire planet as the superweapon was firing upon the Resistance base on D ' Qar . The stored stellar energy then expanded , causing the planet to turn into a star . Description . Starkiller Base was a mobile , forested ice planet rich in kyber crystal s that was located in the Unknown Regions . The First Order , a junta that believed themselves to be the successors to the ideals of the Galactic Empire , converted the planet into a base of operations owing to its unique energy - transmitting crystalline deposits , and used it to house a superweapon capable of destroying entire star system s . The superweapon consumed stars as a power source via a method which cut off starlight from the surface , and would move on to a new star system after depleting a particular star . Its mobility was provided by rocket port s on the far side of the base . The weapon ran on a type of dark energy called " quintessence " , which was ubiquitous in the universe , and offered a practically unlimited power source to the First Order . Using a star as a power source , an array of collectors on one side of the planet would gather dark energy in stages , redirecting it to the planetary core , where it was held in place by the natural magnetic field of the planet , as well as an artificial containment field maintained by the machinery the First Order had installed within the crust . As the planetary magnetic field would not be enough to contain the amount of energy that the weapon required , a thermal oscillator was built into the planet . It generated an oscillating containment field which allowed the installation to expend considerably less energy at containing the dark energy than would be required using a steady containment field . A colossal hollow cylinder , large enough to dominate the view of the planet from orbit , penetrated the containment field to a predetermined distance , in order to direct the blast towards its target , and also to absorb its energy , which would otherwise cause catastrophic groundquake s . This design made the weapon vulnerable when it was fully charged , as the destruction of the containment field oscillator the moment before the weapon fired would release the accumulated energy not through the firing cylinder , but throughout the planetary core where it was being held , leading to the gradual collapse of the surface into the core . As Starkiller Base was charged through the power of stars , it gradually blocked out sunlight until , running at full capacity , it extinguished it completely , leaving the surface in darkness . In order for the weapon to fire , its weapons engineers would induce a breach in the containment field , allowing the collected dark energy to escape the core through the hollow cylindrical opening on the antipodes of the planet relative to the stellar collector . During this process , the dark energy transformed to a state known as " phantom energy " , and left the planet behind , tearing a hole through hyperspace along a perfectly linear path . The people stationed at the Base called the dimension through which the phantom energy beam traveled " sub - hyperspace " , and this method of delivering the payload was near - instantaneous across vast distances . The rotation and inclination of the planet had to be taken into account for the weapon to target something , and also the lack of obstacles between it and the target , as the phantom energy beam would only be intercepted by an object of sufficient mass ( like a planet ) . When the phantom energy struck a planet , the interaction produced enough heat to ignite the planet ' s core , creating a pocket nova . The space - time disruption caused by the phantom energy ' s passage would make the nova instantaneously visible thousands of light years away , for a short time . Starkiller Base was protected by a planetary shield that was strong enough to deflect any bombardment , and could not be penetrated by any ship traveling at sublight speeds . The shield had an exploitable flaw , however ; a fractional refresh rate necessary for a shield of its size , which could be exploited by a single ship exiting hyperspace inside the shield , with barely a second to right itself before crashing on the planet ' s surface . The shield control was also localized , which meant that , in case it was disabled via malfunction or sabotage , the planet would be unprotected in the time it took technicians to arrive at shield control and reestablish its operation . If shield control was damaged beyond repair , shield control had to be overridden , which was a time - consuming process . These flaws were utilized by the Resistance to destroy the Base . The " Millennium Falcon " entered the shield after traveling through hyperspace and crash - landed on the edge of a cliff . In addition to the primary weapon and shield control , Starkiller Base ' s facilities included numerous ship hangars , sanitation infrastructure , amenities for the garrison of stormtroopers , flooding tunnels and a room dedicated to communications with Supreme Leader Snoke via hologram . Snowtroopers utilized Light Infantry Utility Vehicle s to help maintain the vast technological accomplishment that was Starkiller Base , as its technology penetrated the entire planet . Crew and support staff helped maintain this vast technological terror in both surface and subsurface facilities , while the sheer size of the planet meant that droid workers were essential in maintaining the base . Sentry droids utilized rolling casters to travel through the base ' s interior , while patrol droids utilized long - range communications antennae to survey the wilderness above . The planet was also host to the largest known deployment of First Order military forces by the time of its destruction , with its command and operations crew drawing from both Army and Navy ranks . History . The planet that would become Starkiller Base was once a remote and mysterious world known only to a handful in the galaxy . During the age of the Galactic Empire , the planet was mined for kyber crystal s for use in the Death Star ' s superlaser . After the Empire ' s fall at the Battle of Jakku , the founders of the First Order secured research logs from secret Imperial laboratories detailing the planet . After searching for decades in the Unknown Regions for a world that met the planet ' s exact specifications , the First Order eventually located it . The planet was initially scouted by snowtrooper teams who eliminated any native life forms that could have posed a threat to the extensive future excavation and construction project . The ice planet soon became known as Starkiller Base , and became the unofficial headquarters of the First Order . Mining operations were conducted in order to harvest the planet ' s kyber crystal deposits for use in the First Order ' s war machine , and after sufficient excavation was completed , the Order converted Starkiller Base into a mobile superweapon platform , with the colossal superlaser array embedded in the planet ' s crust . The superweapon housed in the base bore some similarities to the Death Star and the Death Star II , the two planet - destroying battle station s built by the Galactic Empire , but it possessed far more power than its predecessors and was more than twice the size , as it was built into a planet . Starkiller Base represented a technological step forward in power , as the First Order believed that they needed to become more powerful than the fallen Galactic Empire if they were to succeed in enacting their goals . Starkiller Base drew its power from the energy of stars , a possible reason for its name . The culmination of the Galactic Empire ' s research into dark energy translations and hyperspace tunneling , the enormous arrays of specially designed collectors used the power of a sun to attract and send dark energy to a containment unit at the core of the planet , where it was held and built up until the weapon was ready to fire . Its ability to concentrate dark energy in this manner gave Starkiller Base access to a practically unlimited source of energy . The first test of the of the base ' s weaponry , which had already been charged by draining a star before moving into position , happened right before the Battle of Takodana . After gaining Supreme Leader Snoke ' s approval , General Hux ordered the base to fire on the capital of the New Republic , Hosnian Prime , and four other planets in the Hosnian system , utterly destroying the planets and a significant portion of the New Republic ' s fleet . The sub - hyperspace rip caused by the base ' s firing allowed the light from the novas to be temporarily visible as it happened on the surface of Takodana . During the battle on Takodana , the scavenger and Resistance ally Rey was captured by Kylo Ren and taken to Starkiller Base , where he attempted to interrogate her . She was able to resist upon realizing that she was Force - sensitive . Destruction . As Starkiller Base prepared to destroy the planet D ' Qar , the site of the Resistance ' s headquarters , the Resistance planned an attack of their own . Using information from Finn , a defected First Order Stormtrooper , Resistance pilot Temmin Wexley flew a reconnaissance mission to the Starkiller Base system , acquiring detailed scan data on the base . Using the data , Finn revealed a critical weak point — the Base ' s thermal oscillator — that , if destroyed when the weapon was fully charged , but before it fired , would eliminate the base . Squadrons of X - wings engaged TIE fighters defending the Base , while the " Millennium Falcon " bypassed its shields and deployed a ground team to disable the shield generators . When the X - wings tried to take down the thermal oscillator but failed , Han Solo and his team delved deeper into the Base ' s subterranean complex , with the aim of reaching the weak point themselves . Along the way they re - encountered Rey , who had freed herself . Chewbacca detonated explosives on columns supporting an access tunnel that led into the thermal oscillator ' s conduit . With the tunnel open , Poe Dameron , leader of the Resistance Starfighter Corps , entered it and destroyed the conduit , starting a chain reaction of explosions across the planet ' s surface . Within minutes , the planet imploded and then exploded , the stored material from the drained sun expanding to create a new star in the planet ' s place , turning the star system into a binary . Behind the scenes . Starkiller Base was created for the 2015 film . The film ' s director , J . J . Abrams , stated that the superweapon ' s similarities to the two Death Stars from the original trilogy were intentional , as the new generation of Imperials within the First Order would want to prove that they were stronger and more advanced than their predecessors in the Galactic Empire . The base ' s name harkens back to the original name of Luke Skywalker , who George Lucas originally called Luke Starkiller . In " Star Wars " Legends , there existed a space station called the Star Forge , which , like Starkiller Base , also drew in energy from a star to convert it into energy . However instead of redirecting it through a destructive beam , the Star Forge converted the material to make starships meant for conquest .