Starkiller Base

Referred to as "the Starkiller," Starkiller Base was situated on the ice planet Ilum, a world abundant in kyber crystals and located within the Unknown Regions. The First Order, an organization that saw itself as the successor to the Galactic Empire's ideals, transformed the planet into a base of operations because of its distinctive crystalline deposits capable of transmitting energy. They then utilized it to house a superweapon with the ability to destroy entire star systems. This superweapon used suns as its energy source. Rocket ports on the far side of the base provided mobility. Starkiller Base also functioned as a major shipyard for the First Order.

The weapon derived its power from a form of dark energy known as "quintessence," which was abundant throughout the universe, offering the First Order an almost limitless power supply. Collectors positioned on one side of the planet gathered dark energy from a star in stages, then redirected it to the planetary core. The planet's natural magnetic field, along with an artificial containment field maintained by machinery installed by the First Order within the crust, held the energy in place. Because the planetary magnetic field was insufficient to contain the amount of energy needed by the weapon, a thermal oscillator was incorporated into the planet. This generated an oscillating containment field, allowing the installation to use significantly less energy to contain the dark energy than would be necessary with a steady containment field.

A massive hollow cylinder, situated inside the enormous trench created by the Empire's mining operations and large enough to dominate the view of the planet from orbit, penetrated the containment field to a specific depth. This served to direct the blast toward its target and absorb its energy, which would otherwise cause devastating groundquakes. This design created a weakness when the weapon was fully charged. Destroying the containment field oscillator just before the weapon fired would release the accumulated energy not through the firing cylinder, but throughout the planetary core where it was being held, resulting in the gradual collapse of the surface into the core.

As Starkiller Base charged using the power of stars, it progressively blocked sunlight, ultimately extinguishing it entirely when operating at full capacity, plunging the surface into darkness. To fire the weapon, its engineers would induce a breach in the containment field, allowing the collected dark energy to escape the core through the hollow cylindrical opening on the antipodes of the planet relative to the stellar collector. During this process, the dark energy transformed into a state called "phantom energy," tearing a hole through hyperspace along a perfectly straight path as it left the planet. The energy beam was specifically engineered to be visible across the galaxy, with the intention of encouraging surrender to the First Order.

Those stationed at the base referred to the dimension through which the phantom energy beam traveled as "sub-hyperspace." This method of delivering the payload allowed for near-instantaneous travel across vast distances. The weapon's targeting required consideration of the planet's rotation and inclination, as well as the absence of obstructions between it and the target, since the phantom energy beam could only be intercepted by an object of sufficient mass, such as a planet. When the phantom energy struck a planet, the interaction generated enough heat to ignite the planet's core, creating a pocket nova. The space-time disruption caused by the phantom energy's passage made the nova visible thousands of light years away for a brief period.

Starkiller Base was protected by a planetary shield strong enough to deflect any bombardment and impenetrable by any ship traveling at sublight speeds. However, the shield had a weakness: a fractional refresh rate necessary for a shield of its size. A single ship exiting hyperspace inside the shield could exploit this, with only a brief moment to correct its course before crashing onto the planet's surface. The shield control was also localized, meaning that if it was disabled by malfunction or sabotage, the planet would be unprotected until technicians arrived at shield control to reestablish its operation. If shield control was irreparably damaged, it had to be overridden, a time-consuming process. The Resistance exploited these vulnerabilities to destroy the base. The Millennium Falcon entered the shield after traveling through hyperspace and crash-landed on the edge of a cliff.

In addition to the main weapon and shield control, Starkiller Base included numerous ship hangars, sanitation systems, facilities for the garrison of stormtroopers, flooding tunnels, and a room dedicated to holographic communications with Supreme Leader Snoke. Snowtroopers employed Light Infantry Utility Vehicles to maintain the vast technological achievement that was Starkiller Base, with its technology permeating the entire planet. Crew and support staff maintained this immense technological terror in both surface and subsurface facilities, while the planet's sheer size necessitated the use of droid workers to maintain the base. Sentry droids used rolling casters to navigate the base's interior, while patrol droids used long-range communications antennae to survey the wilderness above. The planet also hosted the largest known deployment of First Order military forces at the time of its destruction, with its command and operations crew drawn from both Army and Navy ranks.

Ilum, the planet that would become Starkiller Base, was once a remote and mysterious world known only to a handful in the galaxy. During the age of the Galactic Empire, Ilum was mined for kyber crystals to power the Death Star's superlaser. This extensive mining of kyber crystals resulted in an equatorial trench on the planet, which would later house the Starkiller superweapon.

Following the Empire's defeat at the Battle of Jakku, the founders of the First Order acquired research logs from secret Imperial laboratories detailing the planet. After searching for decades in the Unknown Regions for a world that met the planet's specific requirements, the First Order finally located Ilum. Snowtrooper teams initially scouted the planet, eliminating any native life forms that could have threatened the extensive future excavation and construction project. Ilum soon became known as Starkiller Base, and it became the unofficial headquarters of the First Order. Mining operations were conducted to extract the planet's kyber crystal deposits for use in the First Order's war efforts. After sufficient excavation, the Order transformed Starkiller Base into a mobile superweapon platform, embedding the colossal superlaser array in the massive trench in the planet's crust. The previous Imperial mining made the planet's conversion into a superweapon easier.

The superweapon housed within the base shared similarities with the DS-1 Death Star Mobile Battle Station and the DS-2 Death Star II Mobile Battle Station, the two planet-destroying battle stations constructed by the Galactic Empire. However, it possessed significantly more power than its predecessors and was more than twice the size, as it was built into a planet. Starkiller Base represented a technological advancement in power, as the First Order believed they needed to be more powerful than the fallen Galactic Empire to achieve their goals. Starkiller Base drew its power from the energy of stars, which may explain its name.

The culmination of the Galactic Empire's research into dark energy translations and hyperspace tunneling, the enormous arrays of specially designed collectors harnessed the power of a sun to attract and send dark energy to a containment unit at the planet's core. There, it was held and built up until the weapon was ready to fire. This ability to concentrate dark energy provided Starkiller Base with access to a virtually unlimited energy source.

At some point before the mission to the Dassal system, Starkiller Base drained the system's sun. Furthermore, the planet Najra-Va was cored in a test attempt to construct the base. The First Order used ships to transport waste off of the planet and dump it on the Garbage Moon of Maher. On Starkiller, stormtroopers, including FN-2187 and FN-3761, used mops to keep the floors clean. After being stranded on a remote planet with Kylo Ren, General Hux and Captain Phasma confronted Admiral Brooks on Starkiller Base, while it was under construction, where he killed the admiral.

The first test of the base's weaponry, which had already been charged by draining a star before moving into position, occurred just before the Battle of Takodana. After receiving Supreme Leader Snoke's approval, General Hux ordered the base to fire on the capital of the New Republic, Hosnian Prime, and four other planets in the Hosnian system, completely destroying the planets and a significant portion of the New Republic's fleet. This event became known as the Hosnian Cataclysm.

During the Battle of Takodana, Rey, a scavenger and Resistance ally, was captured by Kylo Ren and taken to Starkiller Base, where he attempted to interrogate her. She resisted upon realizing that she was Force-sensitive.

As Starkiller Base prepared to destroy the planet D'Qar, the location of the Resistance's headquarters, the Resistance planned their own attack. Finn, a defected First Order Stormtrooper, provided information that allowed Resistance pilot Temmin Wexley to fly a reconnaissance mission to the Starkiller Base system, gathering detailed scan data on the base. Using this data, Finn identified a critical weak point: the Starkiller's thermal oscillator. Destroying this oscillator when the weapon was fully charged but before it fired would destroy the base.

Squadrons of X-wings engaged TIE fighters defending the base, while the Millennium Falcon bypassed its shields and deployed a ground team to disable the shield generators. When the X-wings failed to destroy the thermal oscillator, Han Solo and his team ventured deeper into the Starkiller's subterranean complex to reach the weak point themselves. They encountered Rey, who had freed herself. Chewbacca detonated explosives on columns supporting an access tunnel leading into the thermal oscillator's conduit. With the tunnel open, Poe Dameron, a commander in the Resistance Starfighter Corps, entered and destroyed the conduit, triggering a chain reaction of explosions across the planet's surface. The planet imploded and then exploded, with the stored material from the drained sun expanding to create a new micro-star in the planet's place, turning the star system into a binary. The new star was unofficially named "Solo" in honor of Han's death.

Despite the loss of Starkiller Base, the First Order, having decimated the government of the New Republic, began to rule. Confident enough to emerge from the shadows, Snoke decided to command his forces himself from his flagship, the Mega-class Star Dreadnought Supremacy. The Resistance, realizing that their headquarters had been discovered, was forced to evacuate D'Qar. The First Order Navy nearly decimated the Resistance. With only a few survivors remaining, including General Leia Organa, the remnants of the Resistance fled to Crait and then escaped certain defeat aboard the Millennium Falcon thanks to the efforts of the Jedi Master Luke Skywalker and Rey.

Dameron revealed to Rey that he initially thought they were finished when Starkiller Base destroyed the Hosnian system, assuming that the laser was to hit Takodana. He also stated that even the Resistance wasn't sure about what Starkiller was, as they only knew its location by following the trajectory of the lasers.

Enric Pryde, a zealous individual who had witnessed the fall of the Galactic Empire and later achieved the rank of Allegiant General within the First Order, considered Starkiller a costly mistake. He believed that Hux, the young general who had long championed the weapon's power, was to blame for the base's destruction. One year after Starkiller Base's destruction, Kylo Ren informed his First Order Supreme Council that their forces would merge with the Sith Eternal, the secret cult of Darth Sidious hidden on Exegol. Although General Domaric Quinn expressed skepticism, Pryde saw this proposition as a necessary correction to Hux's errors with Starkiller Base.

The Sith Eternal's fleet, the Final Order, augmented the resources of the First Order's navy and provided them with Xyston-class Star Destroyers, capital ships equipped with planet-killing axial superlasers. While unable to destroy entire systems at once like Starkiller, the massive Sith fleet had the potential to spread across the galaxy and subjugate countless worlds. After the Star Destroyer Derriphan annihilated the planet Kijimi, the Resistance fought a decisive battle against the Sith Eternal on Exegol, destroying the Sith fleet and ending their planet-killing capabilities permanently.

Starkiller Base was created for the 2015 film Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens, the first film in the Star Wars sequel trilogy. J.J. Abrams, the film's director, stated that the superweapon's similarities to the two Death Stars from the original trilogy were intentional. The new generation of Imperials within the First Order wanted to prove that they were stronger and more advanced than their predecessors in the Galactic Empire. The base's name is a reference to Luke Skywalker's original name, which George Lucas had initially called Luke Starkiller.

According to Pablo Hidalgo of the Lucasfilm Story Group, the sub-hyperspace rip caused by the base's firing allowed the light from the novas to be temporarily visible on the surface of Takodana. Hidalgo also stated that the base was mobile and that it had consumed a star before destroying the Hosnian system.

Based on information from Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Star Wars Super Graphic: A Visual Guide to a Galaxy Far, Far Away, Starkiller Base is strongly implied to be the planet Ilum. Both depict Ilum as strip-mined for kyber crystals by the Empire, resulting in a striking resemblance to Starkiller Base. The connection between Ilum and Starkiller Base was officially confirmed in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker: The Visual Dictionary.

In Star Wars Legends, a space station called the Star Forge existed, which, like Starkiller Base, also drew energy from a star and converted it into energy. However, instead of redirecting it through a destructive beam, the Star Forge converted the stellar matter into raw materials to manufacture starships and war materials for conquest.

"Starkiller" is the surname of the protagonist Annikin in the first draft of the original 1977 film Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope.

Starkiller Base, specifically Precinct 47 and the Command Center, is featured in the 2017 videogame, Star Wars Battlefront II. In the game's Galactic Assault mode, one scenario involves players fighting for the Resistance, landing on the surface with the goal of freeing prisoners inside the base's detention block. Players are presented with three sets of objectives, each requiring completion to advance. Meanwhile, First Order players have a single objective: eliminate 100 Resistance players before they complete a set of objectives. If they fail, the kill quota increases by 50, maxing out again at 100. For the first set of objectives, Resistance players must plant bombs at a fuel station and turbolaser near the base's main gate. If successful, the Resistance must then capture a command post at the base's main gate. Finally, they must override both the base's cell door and gate controls if the previous steps are completed. If the Resistance wins, they are shown boarding transports and escaping. If the First Order wins, Starkiller Base fires.

The base also appears as a potential map in the Heroes vs. Villains and Hero Showdown modes, as well as in the Strike mode. In the latter, Resistance players are tasked with rigging two TIE fighters with explosives.