Battle of Hoth (0 BBY)

Following the Battle of Toprawa, Imperial forces, commanded by Darth Vader, tracked Princess Leia Organa's CR90 corvette, the Tantive IV, to Tatooine. Their goal was to recover the plans for their Death Star battle station, which had been seized by Rebel operatives. Organa dispatched the plans to the planet's surface with the droids R2-D2 and C-3PO to prevent them from falling into Imperial hands. The Imperials initiated a search of the planet and, upon finding a Rebel base there, launched an attack to destroy it. However, a group of Rebels managed to escape Tatooine and fled to Gamma Base on Hoth. Determined to find the Rebels, Vader sent out Viper probe droids to locate them.

Once a probe droid landed on Hoth, the commander of Gamma Base instructed Rookie One to investigate in a T-47 airspeeder, ordering the destruction of any probe droids encountered. Rookie One quickly verified the presence of a probe droid, prompting the Rebels to prepare for evacuation as the pilot chased the droid into a cave.

After destroying the probe, Rookie One emerged from the cave in his snowspeeder and joined other Rebel snowspeeders to defend Gamma Base—All Terrain Armored Transports were approaching, and the Rebels required more time to complete the evacuation. The Rebels fought valiantly against the heavily armored All Terrain Armored Transports, successfully destroying two of the walkers with their laser cannons.

During the retreat, Rookie One's snowspeeder experienced a power failure, preventing it from staying airborne. He instructed the others to continue without him, prioritizing the safety of the fleeing transports, while he attempted to return to base on foot. Unable to wait for the downed pilot, the commander oversaw the evacuation, leaving Rookie One alone on the planet. By the time he traversed the frozen landscape to reach Gamma Base, it had been overrun by Imperial stormtroopers. Rookie One fought his way through the base, eventually reaching the hangar where he boarded the last remaining T-65 X-wing starfighter, escaping just as stormtroopers fired after him in vain.

Rookie One's departure allowed him to assist the last GR-75 medium transport as it attempted to jump to hyperspace. The pilot joined Commander Ru Murleen's group, and the Rebels fought off waves of TIE fighters, protecting the transport until it safely jumped out of the system. Once the Rebel pilots were clear of the Imperial fighters, they followed the transport to safety.

Sometime during this engagement, the StarSpeeder 1000 [Star Tours Flight 1401], owned by Star Tours, which had just escaped Spaceport THX1138 with a Rebel spy onboard fleeing Imperial forces occupying the station, arrived at Hoth. It briefly witnessed the final stages of the battle, sustained minor damage from a blaster bolt fired by an AT-AT, and narrowly avoided being crushed by one, eventually gaining enough traction after falling off a cliff to exit Hoth.

The Rebels retreated to Yavin Base on Yavin 4. However, the Imperials had captured Organa and allowed her to escape, tracking her back to Yavin 4. Unconcerned by the Imperial failure to prevent the Rebel evacuation of Gamma Base, Vader prepared for a major strike on Yavin Base itself. Following the Battle of Yavin, the Rebels would eventually return to Hoth and establish Echo Base, assuming that the Empire would not expect them to return. However, they were once again forced to evacuate in 3 ABY when the Imperials discovered the new base.

This conflict was exclusively featured in the 1993 LucasArts video game Star Wars: Rebel Assault created by Vincent Lee. The game presented an original story, with many events designed to echo those seen in the Star Wars movies. The conflict shared similarities with the Battle of Hoth from 1980's Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back. Although the planet was not named in the game itself, the manual for the Sega CD version and the box for the PC version both identified the ice-world as "Hoth".

The "ice caverns" were designed by Ron Lussier, who created the branching map; initially he tried to create the tunnels as some 3D cylinders around the flying paths, but eventually made the 3D space like flying within two halves of virtual bowls. The AT-AT level was designed by artist Daniel Colon.

The Rebel presence on Hoth in 0 BBY introduces a continuity issue: Earlier sources indicated that the Alliance Intelligence was unaware of Hoth prior to the Battle of Yavin, only discovering it when Luke Skywalker crashed there. Another source suggests that the Rebels learned of Hoth from the Habassa species, also after the Battle of Yavin. During the development of the battle depicted in Star Tours: The Adventures Continue, George Lucas suggested to the Imagineers to keep the battle plan instead of a tauntauns and wampas scenario they conceived to avoid continuity issues, offering the suggestion that the Rebels and Imperial forces clashed on Hoth before, but the Empire did not expect the Rebels to return to Hoth afterwards. The staff, when hearing this from Lucas, were surprised that he was willing to sacrifice continuity for this.

In the ride Star Tours: The Adventures Continue, one of the randomly chosen destinations upon escaping from Imperial forces congregated at the Star Tours space station was Hoth, which depicted a battle between the Rebel forces and the Imperial forces. Given that the ride's story is strongly implied to occur between 2 BBY (the founding of the Rebel Alliance) and 0 BBY (the events of A New Hope), it is likely that this was the battle depicted. The Hoth scenario, while random, is always chosen during the middle of the ride. Note that the Hoth section is the only one of the three middle scenarios (Hoth, Kashyyyk, and Tatooine) that involves actual combat.