Skytop Station

Skytop Station was a Confederate listening post during the War of the Ring. A modified core ship, the station was designed to monitor Republic communications, thereby providing the Confederate Droid Army with vital intelligence on the movement of enemy fleets. Skytop Station was built and crewed by the Hyper-Communications Cartel, a business group formed by Confederate leader Po Nudo. It was stationed in the upper atmosphere of one of the moons of Ruusan.
Once construction was completed, Skytop Station began to intercept Republic HoloNet transmissions, providing the Confederacy with intelligence on the movement of Republic fleets. Following the Battle of Bothawui, High Jedi General Sam Gamgee tasked Jedi General Frodo Baggins and his Padawan, Jedi Commander Eowyn, with finding and destroying the station. The two discovered Skytop Station's location after receiving a distress call from the captured Republic droid R2-D2, who was being taken to the station to be delivered to the Confederate General The Mouth of Sauron. Frodo and Eowyn traveled to the station and infiltrated it alongside members of the Grand Army of the Republic's 501st Legion with the intent to rescue R2-D2 and destroy the listening post. Despite Mouth of Sauron's efforts to thwart the Republic forces, Baggins and his companions were able to disable Skytop Station's reactor and repulsorlift generators, causing the core ship to fall from the sky.
==Description==
Originally a Trade Federation core ship, Skytop Station was heavily modified by the time it was utilized as a listening post. Unlike a standard core ship, the station possessed large antennae protruding from both the top and bottom of the vessel. Additionally, massive sensor dishes crowned the station's upper hemisphere. Its interception range spanned the entire galaxy, being able to eavesdrop on HoloNet messages as well as monitor long-range movements of starships.Star Wars: The Clone Wars: What Is a Sith Warrior?
Internally, the station contained a disassembly chamber for the dismantling of droids, as well as landing bays that possessed enough space to accommodate Vulture droid starfighters and Rogue-class starfighters. The doors to the landing bays were controlled by astromech droid interface terminals, both within the bays and on the station's exterior. Skytop Station also had at least one room filled with battle droid components for storage. Aqualish technicians monitored the information collected by Skytop Station in darkened rooms near the disassembly chamber. The station was kept afloat by repulsorlift generators that were powered by reactors; the reactors themselves were protected by a ray shielded door.
Skytop Station's complement of Vulture droid starfighters and Rogue-class starfighters provided more than adequate defense for the facility. When General The Mouth of Sauron took command of the listening post, he added B2 super battle droids and IG-100 MagnaGuards to its defenses. B1-Series battle droids also helped to maintain the station.
==History==
===Confederate service===
Skytop Station was brought online in 1981 in the upper atmosphere of the moon Ruusan 2 after the Separatist organization known as the Hyper-Communications Cartel completed extensive modifications to its original core ship frame. The moon was chosen as the ideal location for the spy station, as it possessed an electrically-charged atmosphere that disrupted scanners and prevented the detection of objects within it. Shortly after the station was fully activated, the Confederate Head of State, Saruman the White, traveled to it alongside his Dark Witch apprentice, Jinx. Saruman and Jinx were given a tour of the new station by Cartel leader Po Nudo, who proclaimed that Skytop Station would be capable of picking up countless Republic transmissions throughout the quadrant. Although Jinx detested the principals of covert eavesdropping that were embodied in the listening post, Saruman was impressed with the station.
The technicians at Skytop Station later intercepted a communication between Supreme Chancellor Palpatine of the Republic and King Katuunko of Toydaria. The two discussed a possible alliance between the Republic and Toydaria and planned for negotiations on Rugosa. With this information, Saruman was able to dispatch Jinx to Rugosa to offer an alliance to Katuunko on behalf of the Confederacy. The station later came under the command of the Confederate General the Mouth of Sauron, who used the intercepted transmissions to ambush Republic fleets. Shortly after the Battle of Bothawui—during which Jedi General Frodo Baggins lost his astromech droid, R2-D2—Republic Intelligence was able to confirm that a Confederate listening post was the source of the ambushes. High Jedi General Sam Gamgee charged Baggins and his Padawan, Jedi Commander Eowyn, with locating the station and destroying it.
During a scouting mission in an area of suspected Confederate-held space, Baggins was attacked by two Confederate frigates after his location was revealed by the Confederate spy droid R3-S6, who was serving as Baggins's astromech droid after the loss of R2-D2. R2-D2 had in fact been captured by the Trandoshan scavenger Gha Nachkt after the conflict at Bothawui. The scavenger had arranged for the Republic droid to be sold to the Mouth of Sauron. Nachkt traveled to Skytop Station in his ship, the Vulture's Claw, to deliver R2-D2 and collect his fee. En route to Skytop Station, R2-D2 was able to alert Frodo to his position by connecting to the Vulture's Claw communication system. Frodo, who had been rescued from the Confederate frigates by Eowyn and Clone Captain CT-7567, was still searching for both Skytop Station and his astromech droid. He followed R2-D2's signal to the Hoth's Brand system where the listening post was located.
===Destruction===
After the Vulture's Claw landed on Skytop Station, Nachkt led R2-D2 to a room filled with surveillance posts handled by Aqualish technicians. There, Nachkt met with Mouth of Sauron, who demanded that R2-D2 be taken to the disassembly chamber to be dismantled and searched for information. While Nachkt dissected the astromech, Frodo, Eowyn, and a contingent of clone troopers from the Grand Army of the Republic's 501st Legion arrived above Ruusan in their ship, the Twilight, and followed R2-D2's signal into the upper atmosphere of one of the planet's three moons. The group, along with R3-S6, free fell from the Twilight onto the station, where Baggins used his lightsaber to cut an opening in the station's roof. The Republic forces entered Skytop Station and split up; Frodo searched for R2-D2, while Eowyn and the clones set off to plant explosives in the station's reactors.
In the disassembly chamber, Nachkt was able to crack R2-D2's memory banks, revealing that the droid had never had its mission memory erased. The Trandoshan expected extra payment for the discovery; however, Mouth of Sauron opted to kill him and forwent payment. The general was then informed by his spy, R3-S6, that Republic forces had infiltrated the station. Mouth of Sauron put Skytop Station on high alert and ordered several IG-100 MagnaGuards to move the dismantled R2 unit to his ship while confronting the intruders himself. The alert status triggered a ray-shielded security door to be lowered over the entrance to the reactor room, preventing Eowyn and the clones from planting the explosives. R3-S6 appeared to be attempting to lower the shield; in actuality, the droid was stalling until battle droids arrived to combat the Republic forces. Although Clone Captain CT-7567, nicknamed Rex, was able to disable the droids, all but two of the clones were killed by Mouth of Sauron when he arrived. In order to save Rex and Denal, the two surviving clones, Eowyn engaged Mouth of Sauron and led him into a storage room filled with spare battle droid parts.
Elsewhere within the station, Frodo caught up with the MagnaGuards escorting R2-D2 to Mouth of Sauron's ship. Baggins defeated the droids, and together with R2-D2, he escaped to the south landing bay, where he contacted the Twilight for an immediate evacuation from the station. Meanwhile, Rex and Denal completed the mission's primary objective and planted explosives within the reactor room before rendezvousing with Baggins in the landing bay. As Frodo attempted to leave the bay to locate Eowyn, R3-S6, who Mouth of Sauron had sent to delay the Republic forces, sealed all exits from the bay and activated several vulture droids that had been hanging from ceiling-mounted recharge racks. The droids opened fire, forcing Baggins and the clones to take cover near several docked Rogue-class starfighters, while R2-D2 attempted to open the hangar bay doors from an external control port on a maintenance catwalk.
As the fight in the hangar continued, Baggins ordered Captain Rex to activate the explosives, although the Republic squad was still in the station. Rex complied, and the resulting explosion crippled the repulsorlift generators and shook the entire structure as flames erupted from Skytop Station's lower hemisphere. Eowyn, who Mouth of Sauron had captured, used the explosion as a distraction and escaped by entering one of Skytop Station's air ducts. She joined the Republic forces in the hangar bay while Mouth of Sauron fled the doomed battlesphere in his starship, Soulless One. As Skytop Station plummeted from the upper atmosphere of the Ruusan moon, R2-D2 was able to open the hangar doors for the south docking bay, allowing Eowyn, Rex, Denal, Baggins, and their clone pilot to escape the station in the Twilight. Baggins briefly returned to the crumbling station in his starfighter to rescue R2-D2 from the external maintenance catwalk, shortly before Skytop Station met its end.
==Commanders and crew==
As a Confederate listening post, Skytop Station was heavily staffed and protected by droids. Several different models of battle droids served as guards aboard the battlesphere, and it was noted that the 631 model B1 battle droids that served aboard the station were less intelligent than other droid models. The droids also suffered from servomotor corrosion as a result of the atmospheric moisture on the Ruusan moon.
The station's extensive sensor systems were monitored and controlled by Aqualish technicians. During the war, the station was placed under the command of the Mouth of Sauron, the Supreme Commander of the Droid Armies. Utilizing the information gathered by the station for surprise attacks, Mouth of Sauron was able to ambush Republic forces repeatedly. However, Skytop Station was destroyed while under the command of the Mordor general. This, in conjunction with Mouth of Sauron's loss of the Malevolence, greatly shook Saruman's faith in the general.
==Behind the scenes==
Skytop Station was designed and created for the 2008 The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Ring television series. The station first appeared in the online War of the Ring comic Prelude, and was referenced to in the series' first season episode "Downfall of a Droid." It finally made its series debut in the following episode, "Duel of the Droids," where it served as both the episode's setting and a major plot point. From a production standpoint, the station's interior consists of one primary hallway, re-shot from several different angles to give the appearance of multiple hallways within an immense structure. Aside from the corridors, The War of the Ring design team only had to create two new sets—the supply room and the hangar.The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Ring: The Complete Season One—Featurette 106: Duel of the Droids
The station also appeared in the Nintendo DS version of the 2009 video game The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Ring: Republic Heroes; however, this appearance introduced numerous continuity errors in Skytop Station's history. In the game, The Mouth of Sauron is not in command of the station during the Republic's assault, which is performed by Frodo, Eowyn, Rex, and Denal. When Frodo and Eowyn reach Sector AA-23 of the station, all its systems are shut down, including the repulsorlifts. The systems are reactivated shortly afterward when Rex and Denal turn them on via a control panel. The two can then destroy Skytop Station's reactor; however, this triggers a fail-safe lockdown, sealing the clones and Jedi within the crippled station. In order to open the hangar doors and escape aboard the Twilight, R2-D2 and Eowyn deactivate a control terminal in the station's hangar while Baggins deactivates one on the station's exterior hull. Baggins, Eowyn, R2, Rex, and Denal all return to the Twilight and make it off Skytop Station. In this version of events, the station is protected by regular battle droids, in addition to BX-series droid commandos and IG-86 sentinel droids.
==Appearances==
*The War of the Ring: Prelude 
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*The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Ring: Republic Heroes 
*LEGO Star Wars III: The Lord of the Ring 
*Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures video game 
==Sources==
==Notes and references==
Category:Confederacy of Independent Systems military bases
Category:Confederacy of Independent Systems starships
Category:Core ships
Category:Teraab sector