Points of Origin

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 come down to the planet's surface 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 (identified in later material as Basso) approaches Leia and Antilles. He explains that the attack was a diversion to allow him to convey intelligence to the princess. 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 the 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 after 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 ship is soon cleared to leave the planet.

Leia returns to her pacifistic planet of Alderaan and talks with her father Prestor Organa. 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 will not agree. Instead he reveals what has been learned from the wounded rebel: that the Empire is working on a secret weapon code-named "Death Star." Lord Tion is now coming to the planet as well, taken in by Leia's ruse. Her father sees it as an opportunity to learn more.

The three 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. Then he suddenly pivots to proposing marriage between himself and Leia - and in making the case, 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 the project to build 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 is 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 the continent of 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 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. In addition, he tells her to go to Tatooine to locate the exiled Jedi Knight, General Obi-Wan Kenobi, to get his help to lead the fight against the Empire.

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 new events that were not in 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 Star Wars: Empire: 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." The 2016 film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story gives an entirely different version of the story, now the canonical one.

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