The Shield Gate was a wheel-shaped Golan M3185 space station that the Galactic Empire positioned in orbit around Scarif, a tropical planet situated in the Outer Rim. It functioned as an access point, allowing Imperial starships to circumvent the otherwise impenetrable deflector shield protecting the planet. During the Battle of Scarif, the Rebel Alliance successfully attacked the station, which enabled them to bypass the shield and strike Scarif's Imperial security complex.
The planet Scarif, an Imperial-controlled world that housed the Empire's Imperial Center of Military Research, a research and development location for the Death Star project, had an Imperial space station in orbit known as the Shield Gate. This station was comprised of a wheel-shaped, gray structure, featuring six hangar bays that faced adjacently and accommodated numerous TIE/ln space superiority starfighters.
The purpose of this gate station was to provide a means of entry through Scarif's normally impenetrable, planet-wide deflector shield. As Imperial starships and cargo neared, a gate officer belonging to Gate Control would scan the approaching vessel's clearance codes. Subsequently, the officer would activate two enormous arms that would lower in front of the deflector shield generators, thus creating an opening in the center of the station and granting the vessels access to the planet's atmosphere. The shield could be sealed just as rapidly by retracting the arms, allowing the field to flow back and close the opening, in the event of an attack on the system. Due to the shield's dimensions, a shield relay systems operator was required to meticulously observe deflector field dynamics to avert a hazardous buildup of stellar wind aurorae within the generators.
The Gate station's significance in protecting the ICMR made it a crucial component of Project Stardust's operation. Consequently, it was defended by several turbolaser turrets that were strategically positioned across its surface and precise enough to track and eliminate targets the size of a starfighter. The gate's frame was reinforced, and its projectors were so powerful that it could withstand numerous hits from proton torpedoes without sustaining damage. The only method to deactivate the field involved destroying the entire station, which could be achieved by colliding it with a larger starship.
Shortly before the Battle of Yavin, the Alliance to Restore the Republic initiated an assault on Scarif as part of their endeavor to pilfer the plans for the Empire's planet-destroying superweapon, the Death Star. After Rogue One, under the leadership of Jyn Erso, passed through the gate to extract the plans from the Citadel Tower, the Alliance dispatched a number of T-65B X-wing starfighters to enter the Shield Gate and engage the planet's military installations. Despite the Empire's attempts to close the Shield Gate in order to safeguard the complex, some of the fighters managed to penetrate and attack the base. The Rebels then destroyed the gate and disrupted the planetary shield by using the Lightmaker to hurl two Imperial Star Destroyers into the space station. This triumph ultimately paved the way for the successful theft of the plans and the obliteration of the Death Star.
The Shield Gate was conceived and developed for the 2016 film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. The initial glimpse of the Shield Gate was presented in the second Rogue One trailer on October 13, 2016.
In the earlier stages of Rogue One's production, the Shield Gate was imagined as a planetary ring that functioned as both a construction site for Star Destroyers and a station for refueling and resurfacing Imperial vessels.