Points of Origin

"Points of Origin" is the second episode of the Star Wars radio drama. It first aired on National Public Radio on Monday, March 9, 1981. The entire episode takes place before the events of Star Wars: Episode IV. The story follows the Princess Leia Organa in the run-up to the mission that would receive the Death Star plans and set in motion the events of the film.
==Opening crawl==
==Plot summary==
The episode opens in the final stages of a battle as the scheming Lord Tion is leading an imperial subjugation of the planet Ralltiir. The Tantive IV, a starship belonging to Princess Leia, approaches the planet. It has come on a humanitarian mission, but Tion suspects Leia of Rebel activity and orders the ship to be detained. The princess and Captain Antilles land on the planet's surface and travel by speeder to Tion's position to protest their treatment.
Tion treats Leia haughtily as he justifies the blockade, invasion, and occupation of the planet and the execution of many of its inhabitants, including the entire Ralltiiri High Council. He dismisses Leia's protests and instead attempts to flirt with her, expressing a desire to visit her and her father on Alderaan. Their conversation is cut short when he has to deal with a renewed burst of fighting elsewhere. While he is gone, a Rebel operative approaches Leia and Antilles. He explains that the attack was a diversion to allow him to convey intelligence that had been hypno-imprinted in his mind. Furthermore, the entire area is about to be linked to an audio surveillance system, so he cannot reveal any information openly. Antilles hides him in their speeder.
Darth Vader passes by, interrupting the conversation. He tells Leia that her presence on Ralltiir puts her under suspicion of Rebel activity. She will not be allowed to leave the system until her ship is searched. Antilles has already expressed his fear that if the Tantive is searched, they will be arrested. While they are not bringing any weapons, all of their supplies are clearly intended for military use by the Ralltiir rebels. After Vader leaves, Leia forms a plan to avoid capture by appealing to Tion's ego and taking advantage of the Empire's audio surveillance. Speaking loudly to Antilles, she implies that she is attracted to Tion but feels that he is overconfident. She says she hopes he will search their ship because it will make him look bad, both to her and to her father, and she will be able to slow him down a little in his pursuit of her. She furthermore doubts that he will be such a "gentleman" as to let them them go without a search. The ruse works, and the ship is soon cleared to leave the planet.
Leia returns to her pacifistic planet Alderaan. After a long walk from the spaceport to the palace, she
greets her father Prestor Organa. She reflects on her experiences: after witnessing the atrocities on Ralltiir, she now believes that Alderaan should begin to more actively support the Rebellion, including with armed struggle. Her father refuses to agree, insisting that Alderaan remain peaceful. Instead he reveals the intelligence that had been retrieved from the wounded Rebel: that the Empire is working on a secret weapon code-named "Death Star." Furthermore, Lord Tion is now coming to the planet, taken in by Leia's ruse. Her father sees it as an opportunity to learn more.
Leia, Prestor and Tion sit down to dinner. It is a tense gathering; Tion is full of stories about violence committed under his orders and criticizes Alderaan's peaceful ways. He also expresses a desire to take part in what he characterizes as a large wildlife hunt on Alderaan's continent of Thon. The hunt is in fact an action by Alderaan's wildlife service to manage the herds. Leia finds herself disgusted by the idea of killing for pleasure. Tion suddenly pivots to proposing marriage between himself and Leia; in making the case, he carelessly boasts that his position in the Empire is about to rise considerably. Prestor and Leia prompt him to say more, and he reveals that he is involved in a project to build the Empire's secret weapon: a battle station as big as a moon, whose prime weapon will have the power to destroy entire planets. Leia, shocked and angry, accidentally calls this station the "Death Star" - revealing to Tion that she had knowledge of the secret project. Tion realizes that Leia must be part of the Rebel Alliance and attempts to arrest her. The three struggle, and Tion's blaster goes off accidentally, killing him.
A little while later, Leia has arranged to take Tion's body to Thon, where his death will be made to look like a hunting accident. Meanwhile, her father has received news that the Rebel Alliance has won a space battle at Toprawa, using the intelligence that Prestor had coaxed from Tion during their dinner. During the battle, the rebels captured the Death Star plans. Prestor now wants to take the Tantive IV to Toprawa to intercept them. Leia persuades her father to allow her to go instead. He tells her that after retrieving the plans, she should proceed to Tatooine to locate the exiled Jedi Knight, General Obi-Wan Kenobi. Prestor wants his help in the fight against the Empire.
==Continuity==
Like the previous episode "A Wind to Shake the Stars," the events of "Points of Origin" take place before the beginning of Star Wars Episode IV, the film that it is based on. Unlike the first episode, this one consists entirely of original content not adapted from deleted scenes or the Star Wars novelization. Some events from the first part of this episode would be explored in more detail in the 2003 two-issue comic arc Princess... Warrior.
The scenes all center on Leia, showing how she attempts to balance her roles as Imperial Senator, member of a royal family, and leader in the Rebel Alliance. They depict her use of the Tantive for humanitarian voyages, explaining Vader's references to "mercy missions" in the film. The episode is the earliest depiction of life on the peaceful planet Alderaan and the first appearance of Bail Prestor Organa, who is not named in dialogue but is identified as "Prestor" in the credits. In the Prequel trilogy and associated works, he is the husband of Alderaan's ruling monarch, Queen Breha; but in the radio drama he is depicted as ruler of the planet. The title "King" is never used, but his aide Tarrik addresses him as "your Majesty," and it is never mentioned that he has a wife.
"Points of Origin" is also the earliest Star Wars media to explain the means by which the Rebellion captured the Death Star plans. In subsequent years there were numerous contradictory versions of these events written in Star Wars Legends, such that Pablo Hidalgo commented that "...if you had to throw a dinner party and invite everyone who had ever stolen the Death Star plans, you'd be surprised at how many place settings you'd have to worry about.""Checklist: 10 Star Wars Superweapons" 
==Credits==
==Appearances==
==Sources==
*
*The Making of Star Wars For Radio: A Fable For the Mind's Eye
*Star Wars: The National Public Radio Dramatization
==Notes and references==
==External links==
*Star Wars: A New Hope The Original NPR Drama on the Internet Archive
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