Galen Walton Erso, an expert in kyber crystals, was recruited by Orson Krennic. Krennic held the position of Director of the Imperial Military Department of Advanced Weapons Research for the Galactic Empire. His task was to work on Project Celestial Power, which Krennic presented as a project to provide limitless energy. Erso soon found that his research was being used to create a superweapon, the Death Star, and he fled to the isolated planet of Lah'mu. In 13 BBY, Krennic, frustrated by the lack of progress, located Erso and forced him to return to the project after killing his wife Lyra. However, Erso's daughter Jyn escaped and joined Saw Gerrera's Partisans before being abandoned at the age of 16. Erso, though forced to continue his research, subtly introduced a weakness into the Death Star's design that could lead to its complete destruction.

In 1 BBY, with the Death Star's construction nearing completion, Galen grew concerned about the potential consequences of the superweapon's deployment. He entrusted a message to Bodhi Rook, an Imperial cargo pilot seeking to defect, instructing him to deliver it to the Alliance. He told Rook to seek out Saw Gerrera, an old friend of his residing on Jedha. However, Gerrera, increasingly paranoid, doubted Rook's sincerity and subjected him to torture (via Bor Gullet) and imprisonment.

Through contacts within the Partisans, Cassian Andor, an Alliance intelligence operative, learned about Galen's message and Gerrera's capture of Rook. The now two-year-old Rebel Alliance recruited Jyn to persuade Gerrera to hand over the message. Accompanied by Andor and his droid K-2SO, she traveled to Jedha and was captured by the Partisans during an ambush on Imperial forces in Jedha City. Also captured were the Guardians of the Whills, Chirrut Îmwe and Baze Malbus. Jyn met with Gerrera, who eventually showed her the message.

In the message, Galen revealed that he had intentionally designed the Death Star's reactor module to be unstable. Any pressurized explosion to the module would trigger a chain reaction that would completely destroy the station. To locate the module, they would need a full set of plans, located in the data vault of the Citadel Tower on Scarif. Before the message could finish and Jyn could physically take it with her, the Death Star arrived and destroyed Jedha City, killing Gerrera and forcing Jyn, Andor, and their allies to retreat.

They then set off for the planet Eadu, where Galen was stationed, with the intention of bringing him to the Alliance so he could assist them directly. Krennic, suspecting Galen of sending the message, arrived on Eadu to confront him. Andor, who had secret orders to eliminate Galen, hesitated at the brink of killing him. At that moment, an Alliance starfighter squadron arrived and bombarded the Imperial complex where Galen worked, resulting in his death and forcing Krennic to retreat. Andor, Jyn, and their team returned to Yavin-4 aboard a stolen Imperial cargo shuttle.

Following their return from Eadu, Jyn and Captain Andor attended an Alliance Council meeting, where they shared what they had learned about the Death Star and the need to retrieve the plans from Scarif. Most attendees were skeptical about the existence of such a weapon. Those who believed it existed were unconvinced about the deliberate weakness, given that the information came from a criminal who was the daughter of an Imperial engineer. They felt it would be better to hide or surrender. Disheartened, Erso left the meeting, only to discover that Andor and several others—including Chirrut Îmwe, Baze Malbus, and Bodhi Rook—remained willing to fight alongside her. Together, they adopted the name "Rogue One" and embarked on an unauthorized mission to Scarif using the stolen Imperial cargo shuttle, heading towards the planet.

Upon arrival, Rook transmitted the shuttle's clearance codes, allowing them to bypass the planetary shield and land on the surface. Around the same time, Krennic also returned to Scarif to have the command staff thoroughly review all Death Star–related project files created by Galen Erso. Krennic's motive was to determine if there were any irregularities after the Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Vader, had criticized him for compromising the Death Star's secrecy with the destruction of Jedha City. Vader told Krennic that he could only earn his support and Emperor Palpatine's favor if he proved that Erso hadn't revealed any information about the Death Star's weaknesses to the Rebellion.

Capitalizing on the element of surprise, Jyn Erso and Cassian Andor deployed teams to create a diversion, enabling them to infiltrate the Citadel Tower and locate the plans. This involved initially setting explosives throughout the area. Erso and Andor, disguised as Technician Kent Deezling and Lieutenant Colin Hakelia after incapacitating them and taking their uniforms, proceeded to enter the Imperial Center of Military Research. They then lured a K-2X droid to a secluded location so that K-2SO could identify the direct route to the plans using the droid's embedded map. K-2SO found the path and warned them that three squads of stormtroopers stood in their way. Andor then ordered the Marines to detonate the explosives. The battle began with Rebel Commandos detonating multiple explosives on the landing pads surrounding the Scarif complex. During the battle, the Rebels employed a combination of tactics observed in the skirmish at Nexator and skirmish at Carsanza.

The Empire's response to the explosion was initially delayed by command center staff watching the explosions in shock, only launching their response when Director Krennic ordered them to deploy the base garrison. They dispatched many of the troopers at the base to the outside, providing Erso, Andor, and K-2SO the distraction they needed to get further inside the Citadel in search of the Death Star plans. As the rest of Rogue One held down the line outside, Chirrut Îmwe alerted the Rebels to the presence of AT-ACTs. Overwhelmed by the presence of the walkers, the Rebels were forced to retreat to the beach, with many being killed by fire from stormtroopers and the pursuing walkers. As the Rebels reached a beach and dug in, Baze fired a smart rocket at a pursuing AT-ACT, to no effect. However, right before it could obliterate their position the walker was fired on and destroyed by Blue Squadron's X-wings, which had arrived to provide support. Another walker was brought down by a U-wing when its door-mounted ion cannon disabled its legs and a third exploded when an X-wing fired on its open cargo bed.

With Blue Squadron having made it through the shield gate, the Imperial air defenses were scrambled in order to defend the Citadel Tower from the rebel incursion. Rebel X-wings engaged the numerous TIE strikers stationed on Scarif, with both sides suffering substantial casualties. As the air battle raged on, Merrick ordered a U-wing gunship to reinforce the overwhelmed troops on the beach while the rest of the squadron defended them from Imperial fire. As the battle progressed, Director Krennic ordered the deployment of his death trooper guard squadron via TIE/rp Reaper attack lander. The transport was escorted by TIE strikers, which proved too much for General Merrick and resulted in his death. Rogue One continued to draw out the Imperial garrison, allowing Jyn and Cassian the time they needed to recover the plans.

Rebel signals intelligence officer Tenzigo Weems intercepted an Imperial transmission of the presence of Rogue One on Scarif and informed Mon Mothma. Raddus had already left for his ship, and Rebel command mobilized the rest of their fighter aircraft. Following the arrival of the Alliance's fleet, Raddus ordered all squadron leaders to report in then assigned them duties; Red and Gold Squadrons were to defend the fleet, while Blue Squadron was ordered to get to the surface to reinforce those battling on the beaches. Twelve X-wings, including Blue Leader Antoc Merrick, and a single U-wing made it through the opening before Shield Gate control ordered the gate closed.

Seven other X-wings attempted to get through with the rest of their squadron, but none of them made it; one was shot down, two crashed into the shield, one collided with the gate station, and the other three pulled up and rejoined the space battle. The three fighters brought down the bridge shield generators of the Persecutor and shot down a TIE fighter. Renowned pilot Heff Tobber, flying an X-Wing under the callsign Blue Eight, was also unable to make it through the shield so supported the Green Squadron in the space battle. After Blue Squadron made it through the shield gate, Red Squadron attempted a diversionary attack on the gate. The squadron sent 10 of its X-wings to destroy the gate's defense turrets.

The squadron lost a number of their ships to enemy fire but were able to severely damage many of the turbolasers. This tactic drew the attention of several defense turrets, creating an opening for Gold Squadron to begin their attack run on the shield gate. Using ten of their Y-wings, Gold Leader Captain Jon Vander instructed his pilots to begin their initial bombardment, warning his pilots to use caution around the defense towers. Gold Squadron conducted several bombing runs on the shield gate, utilizing proton bombs in the process. Three Y-wings were lost on the first run. The battle intensified as the Imperial forces launched TIE fighters from both Star Destroyers and the shield gate itself, which battered the Rebel cruisers with laser fire and shot down many starfighters, including Red Five (Pedrin Gaul). After seeing that there was no progress on that front, Admiral Raddus ordered the fleet to engage the Star Destroyers.

Andor, K-2SO, and Jyn proceeded towards the data vault. K-2SO began searching for the files after Andor and Erso entered the vault after disabling the technician. K-2SO suggested they transmit the plans to the fleet instead after the shield gate was closed. However, due to the size of the datafiles, the planetary shield had to be taken down for them to be transmitted. Cassian tasked Bodhi with telling the Rebel fleet they had to destroy the shield gate to receive the plans.

A DefStat Three level alert was activated when a multitude of stormtroopers besieged the main archive room after noticing the dead technician, which activated the Vault security contingent. While K-2SO held many of them off with a single blaster pistol, the droid, after withstanding heavy blaster fire, located the Death Star plans and marked the canister. He then locked Erso and Andor in the vault to allow them enough time to retrieve the plans, and was subsequently destroyed fending off stormtroopers, taking down the archive room console in the process.

Bodhi directed Chirrut Îmwe and Baze Malbus to the master power switch for communications on Scarif in order to tell the Rebel fleet to destroy the shield gate. The two turned off the signal disruptor, but perished doing so, though not before killing the entire complement of death troopers sent against them. Rook contacted the Alliance flagship and told them they had to destroy the shield gate to allow the Death Star plans to be transmitted to them. Shortly thereafter, a thermal imploder was thrown into his ship, killing him and destroying the shuttle.

Inside the Scarif Citadel Tower, Orson Krennic, along with two death troopers, opened a security door to the archive vault and began to shoot at Andor and Jyn. Andor killed the two troopers, but was hit by Krennic, rendering him unconscious. Jyn continued her ascent to the escape hatch at the top of the vault and exited onto the roof of the Citadel Tower. On top of the base was the communications dish. After reorienting it, Jyn prepared to send the plans to the Rebel fleet when Krennic appeared. Whilst Krennic confronted her, declaring the Empire's inevitable victory, Andor regained consciousness and made his way to the roof of the station. Right before Krennic was about to kill Jyn, Andor shot the director.

Far above, the Alliance Fleet was taking a significant beating. Although the rebel fleet scrambled its ships and defense cannons, endless waves of TIE fighters battered the rebel ships, destroying a GR-75 medium transport and damaging one of the Nebulon-B frigates, while the Profundity's shielding was reduced to half strength. Gold Leader ordered his squadron to form on his wing, informing them that a path had been cleared. Vander launched multiple ion torpedoes at at one of the two Star Destroyers, the Persecutor, disabling it, along with four of his squadron mates. After receiving Rook's transmission, Admiral Raddus contacted a Sphyrna-class Hammerhead corvette and explained his plan to break open the shield.

The corvette he had chosen to carry out his plan was the Lightmaker, commanded by Kado Oquoné. The ship had earlier sustained heavy damage and was covering the line of retreat. The ship had evacuated all non-essential personnel, leaving just a skeleton crew behind, including Oquoné himself, and, on Raddus' orders, the corvette rammed the disabled Destroyer, locking itself into a notch on the starboard side. Lightmaker then activated its sublight engines, sending Persecutor on a collision course for the nearby Star Destroyer, Intimidator. Admiral Gorin, seeing the incoming hazard, ordered full reverse thrust to avoid the collision, but it was too late. As the two Star Destroyers collided, Persecutor sheared Intimidator through many of it's upper decks. Intimidator broke apart and fell towards Scarif, crashed into the orbital docking station that controlled the deflector shield, and disabled it. With the shield down, Jyn and Andor were able to transmit the Death Star plans to the Profundity.

Wilhuff Tarkin, aware of Darth Vader's impending arrival aboard the Devastator, chose to ignore the rebel ships and instead ordered a single-reactor ignition aimed at the Citadel base on Scarif immediately after the transmission of the plans and the Death Star exited hyperspace. Krennic looked into the sky to see the Death Star looming over the base after regaining consciousness on top of the Citadel Tower. Watched by the horrified Rebel fleet, the superlaser fired upon the surface. The beam vaporized the top third of the Citadel Tower, which was in its direct path, and impacted the surface several kilometers away. Soon after, everyone at the base (including Erso and Andor), along with the Imperial security complex, were vaporized and destroyed by the monumental aftereffects of the impact.

Once the Alliance forces received the Death Star schematics, they attempted to escape to hyperspace. Three CR90 corvettes, two GR-75 transports, one Hammerhead corvette— the Consonance— and a number of starfighters made the jump in time, but the others were intercepted by the Devastator as it suddenly emerged from hyperspace. Three Y-wings, two X-wings and a Dornean gunship successfully took evasive action to avoid crashing into it, but a GR-75 transport was obliterated as it crashed onto the Destroyer's hull when it couldn't pull away in time. The flagship of Vader immediately opened up its forward batteries, aiming for the Profundity; one unfortunate Nebulon-B frigate was caught in the barrage instead and split in half under the sheer firepower. The Destroyer then turned its guns on the Profundity while the rest of the ships scattered. The flagship's already weakened shields gave way, and the ship was crippled by further barrages.

Lord Vader, along with a contingent of stormtroopers, boarded the ship in an attempt to regain the Death Star plans after disabling the Profundity. The Rebels meanwhile downloaded a complete set of the plans onto a data disk and prepared to evacuate them on the Tantive IV, which had been damaged in a previous mission and therefore had been unable to take part in the Battle of Scarif. However, the Profundity experienced a sudden power loss as the troopers attempted to board the corvette, jamming an automatic door in the path of the Rebels. As they attempted to pull the door open, Vader caught up with them and butchered the entire group. However, the trooper holding the data disk managed to pass it to another soldier, second officer Toshma Jefkin, through a gap in the door before being impaled by Vader.

Jefkin ran with the plans, passing into the Tantive as his colleagues gave their lives to slow the relentless Dark Lord of the Sith for a few precious moments. He dove through the corvette's airlock and screamed for it to be launched, and one of the other troopers disengaged the Profundity's hangar docking clamps, leaving Lord Vader and the rest of the boarding party to watch as the Rebel ship escaped. The ship, captained by Raymus Antilles and carrying Princess and Senator Leia Organa, jumped to hyperspace before it could be intercepted by the Devastator, thus ending the Battle of Scarif. Vader and his party then left the Profundity, after which it was destroyed, killing Raddus and the rest of the Rebel crew.

The initial significant triumph for the burgeoning Rebel Alliance in their conflict against the Galactic Empire was the engagement known as the Battle of Scarif. After a period of refraining from direct confrontation with Imperial forces, the rebellion, for the first time, intentionally committed its fleet to open warfare. Despite enduring substantial casualties, the Rebel forces managed to maintain their position. The Empire considered the theft of the plans to be a major source of humiliation, and despite some skepticism regarding their potential to expose vulnerabilities in the battle station, the retrieval of these plans was deemed absolutely essential.

With Princess Leia in possession of the Death Star schematics aboard the Tantive IV, the Devastator, under the personal command of Lord Vader, relentlessly pursued her vessel. The Devastator tracked the Tantive IV to the desert planet of Tatooine, where Vader apprehended the princess and transported her to the Death Star. Simultaneously, Imperial forces were engaged in the search for two droids, R2-D2 and C-3PO, the former of whom carried the Death Star plans within its memory banks. These droids eventually fell into the hands of Luke Skywalker, who, together with Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi and the smuggling duo of Han Solo and Chewbacca, journeyed to the Death Star and successfully liberated Princess Organa. Although Kenobi met his demise at the hands of Vader, his former student, during their escape, the princess and her companions made their way to the Rebel base situated on Yavin 4 and subsequently participated in the Battle of Yavin. This pivotal battle was initiated after Rebel analysts identified a critical weakness in the Death Star plans: a vulnerable thermal exhaust port. Luke Skywalker exploited this vulnerability, leading to the destruction of the Death Star during the engagement.

The death of Pedrin Gaul (Red Five) created an opening in Red Squadron which Skywalker would eventually fill.

The Galactic Empire ensured that the general population, including figures such as the scoundrel Kay Vess, remained uninformed about the Battle of Scarif. The Imperial Security Bureau falsely reported that some of those who perished at Scarif, including Calys, had died in other conflicts, such as the Battle of Trevini.

The genesis of the Battle of Scarif can be traced back to its initial depiction in the opening crawl of the 1977 film Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope, the inaugural installment of the Star Wars original trilogy. This event forms the core narrative of the 2016 Star Wars Anthology film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Within Star Wars Legends continuity, the battle associated with the plan's theft was designated as the Battle of Toprawa, while the overarching operation was referred to as Operation Skyhook.

Gary Whitta, the writer, initially proposed two alternative conclusions for the battle, which were ultimately not incorporated into the final film. One concept involved Krennic surviving the Death Star's destructive blast on Scarif, only to be subsequently executed by Darth Vader aboard a Star Destroyer for his failure to prevent the theft of the Death Star plans. This idea was abandoned due to the implausibility of Krennic's survival. The other discarded ending featured Darth Vader's presence on the surface of Scarif, where he would eliminate a group of Rebels en route to the Imperial security complex, only to arrive too late. This scene was replaced by the sequence depicting Vader boarding the Profundity.

The Battle of Scarif made its initial appearance in Star Wars Battlefront as a complimentary downloadable level, accessible to season-pass holders starting on December 6, 2016. Preliminary concepts for the Star Wars Rebels animated series entertained the possibility of the Spectres stealing the Death Star plans. However, these plans were abandoned by Dave Filoni once Rogue One commenced development. Filoni subsequently decided to shift the show's focus towards Ezra Bridger's personal narrative.

The short story titled Grounded indicates that Elyhek Rue served as Red Seven during the Battle of Scarif. Conversely, Duty Roster asserts that Harb Binli held the position of Red Seven. This article operates under the assumption that Duty Roster is the accurate source.

Sources such as Star Wars Helmet Collection initially dated the Battle of Scarif to 0 BBY. However, Star Wars: Timelines later revised its placement to 1 BBY.