Tantive IV

Within the Tantive IV were living spaces, formal dining areas, meeting rooms, and the engine room.

Princess Leia Organa also benefited from a lavish private room on the ship's upper deck, intended for important figures and official guests. This stateroom, decorated with valuable artworks and furnishings, included multiple rooms. Functioning as a living space, it featured a small circular table and a pair of sizable red couches, and it provided access to a pair of advanced escape modules.

This blockade runner was equipped with eight small escape pods, each able to accommodate three individuals, along with four laser-equipped pods designed for twelve occupants. Over time, the ship was fitted with various armaments.

The numbering of the decks decreased from top to bottom. Storage areas were located above the first deck and below the fourth. Engineering decks followed a similar numbering system and were positioned aft of the main decks, with sensor arrays situated above and below the uppermost and lowermost decks. Sensor Suite A was located at the top, while Sensor Suite B was at the bottom. Access to the Sensor Suites was possible from any deck via the engineering sections. The main reactor core extended vertically through all decks, positioned aft of the engineering decks. Turbolaser emplacements were located near the front. Two turrets were positioned above and below the first and fourth decks, respectively, accessible from any deck. The forward gunnery deck was located ahead of Deck 4, which terminated further back than Decks 2 or 3 and Deck 1. The rear sections of Decks 1 and 4 also ended further forward than the other two decks. Smuggling compartments were positioned closer to the front, within the hammerhead section and above the computer control deck, which was above the bridge. The forward hold was situated beneath Princess Leia's suite, located on Deck 3 and below the bridge.

• Computer control deck (not continuous) [6]
• smuggling compartment (not continuous) [6]
• Power systems (Engineering) [6]
• Armory [6]
• Heavy and light equipment storage spaces [6]
• Maximum capacity escape pods [6]
• Turbolaser systems monitoring [6]
• Turbolaser power generators [6]
• Stateroom suite [7]

• Hyperdrive System Controls (Engineering) [6]
• Sublight System Controls (Engineering) [6]
• Engine Level B Monitoring [6]
• Sickbay Suite [6]
• Meeting Room [6]
• Shields and Screen Systems [6]
• Science and Medical Lab [6]
• Sensors and Communications systems [6]
• Emergency Repair Facilities [6]
• Weapon System Control [6]
• Environmental Control [6]
• Forward Power Distribution Control [6]
• Bridge [6]
• Officers' common room [7]
• Formal state conference chamber [7]
• Formal dining room [7]
• Escape pod access tunnel (circumnavigates entire deck) [7]
• Library [7]
• Airlocks port and starboard [7]

• Auxiliary Override Control (Engineering) [6]
• Heat and Energy Output Control (Engineering) [6]
• Engine Levels A-C Power Distribition (Engineering) [6]
• Engineering Crew quarters [6]
• Officer's quarters [6] [8]
• Captain's quarters [7]
• Passenger quarters [6]
• Princess' Suite [6]
• Princess' secret chamber [6]
• Private observation deck (adjacent to suite) [6]
• Lounges [6]
• Computer power substation [7]
• Tech station [7]
• Airlock [7]
• Main computer room [7]
• Main sensor room [7]
• Sensor power substation [7]
• Engine room [7]
• Crew quarters [7]
• Droid maintenance room [7]

• Smuggling compartment (not contiguous) [6]
• Auxiliary systems (Engineering) [6]
• Engine Level C Monitoring (Engineering) [6]
• Security Hold/Bridge [6]
• Equipment Storage [6]
• Droid storage [6]
• Droid Maintenance [6]
• General Maintenance [6]
• Speeder/Skiff debarkation ramp; Airlock [6]
• Speeder/Skiff garage and repair facility [6]
• Equipment storage [6]
• Forward airlocks [6]

Built sometime before the Clone Wars ended by the Corellian Engineering Corporation, the Tantive IV was initially known as the Star of Alderaan, its renaming honored the Tantive system's diplomats. During the Clone Wars, it served as the consular ship for Bail Organa, Alderaan's senator in the Galactic Republic.

During the Clone Wars, the Confederacy of Independent Systems blockaded the planet Ryloth, preventing the delivery of essential food and medical supplies, thus requiring Republic assistance. After previous attempts to break the blockade failed, Senator Organa piloted the Tantive IV to Toydaria. There, he requested King Katuunko to permit the Republic's use of Toydaria as a staging area for smaller Republic relief ships. These vessels, while more likely to evade the blockade due to their size, needed a refueling point before reaching Ryloth.

Lott Dod of the Trade Federation initially opposed these requests, asserting that aiding Ryloth would align neutral Toydaria with the Republic, forcing the Federation to cease trade with Toydaria to avoid Separatist attacks. However, the King ultimately allowed Bail Organa to secretly dispatch his aid ships. With a diversion created by Jar Jar Binks, the mission to assist the Twi'lek people succeeded.

Around 21 BBY, the Tantive IV was present on Mandalore, a neutral planet, where Bail Organa attended a peace conference between the Galactic Republic and the Confederacy of Independent Systems.

During an escape pod launch exercise, the Tantive IV faced an attack by the Lok Revenants in the Karthakk system. The corvette successfully avoided destruction but lost its jettisoned escape pods. It was soon discovered that R2-D2 and C-3PO were aboard one of the pods. Chief Petty Officer Corla Metonae, the exercise supervisor, was held responsible for the droids' loss. Bail Organa prioritized their retrieval, eventually succeeding in returning them to the Tantive IV.

During the Empire's reign, Princess Leia Organa utilized the ship and her position in the Imperial Senate to support the Rebel Alliance, often conducting covert missions under the guise of humanitarian efforts.

The vessel's final mission was Operation Skyhook: a clandestine operation to retrieve the schematics for the Empire's new superweapon, the First Death Star, from Toprawa.

In addition to the primary schematics from Toprawa, two supplemental data sets were delivered to the Tantive IV from AX-235 aboard the shuttle Maria—one set acquired from Danuta and another set stolen during the Death Star Uprising. The original plan was to deliver them to the Star Cruiser Liberty, but the sudden appearance of the Star Destroyer Immortal disrupted the transfer, forcing the Tantive IV to flee to Tatooine.

U-3PO, a protocol droid serving on the ship, was secretly an Imperial spy. He used a homing device to help the Empire track the Tantive from Toprawa to Tatooine.

The mission's secondary objective was to locate Obi-Wan Kenobi on Tatooine and escort him, along with the Death Star plans, to Alderaan. However, the Imperial I-class Star Destroyer Devastator intercepted the ship while it was in orbit above the planet. To avoid destruction, the Tantive IV signaled its surrender and powered down its main reactor after the Devastator's tractor beams captured it. Imperial troops then boarded the ship using a TIE/br boarding shuttle, quickly disabling and seizing the Tantive IV.

Despite the bravery of the Alderaanian soldiers, stormtroopers from the 501st Legion swiftly took control of the ship. Critically, Leia Organa managed to transfer the Death Star plans to R2-D2, instructing him to find Obi-Wan Kenobi on Tatooine, before she was captured.

Darth Vader personally interrogated Captain Raymus Antilles, seeking the stolen plans without success. Before Senator Organa was on the row, she had seen the portable accessway attached to the Tantive IV. Unable to find the plans on board the Tantive IV, Darth Vader ordered a team of stormtroopers to sweep the planet below to find them. Subsequently, the corvette was destroyed, and its remaining crew was executed. Imperial propaganda, including a fabricated report from the survey vessel Wide-Eyed, falsely claimed that an asteroid storm had destroyed the Tantive IV.

The Tantive IV debuted in the novelization of Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope, where damage to the "principal solar fin" impacted the ship. In the film, the final shot targeted the sensor array but was redirected to the engine section. Incredible Cross-Sections clarified that the shot overloaded the starboard shield projector, causing damage in the power generator system, which led to shutting down the reactor. According to The New Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology, ion cannons disabled the Tantive IV.

Star Wars Insider 90 indicates that Queen Mazicia Organa commissioned the ship, initially named Star of Alderaan, for senator Agrippa Aldrete as a consular vessel. Given that Agrippa Aldrete served as Alderaan's senator before Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace, this statement contradicts the prior assertion that the ship was constructed shortly before the Clone Wars ended.

In Star Wars Insider 93's article "May the Facts Be With You: Part One: #1-50," the Tantive IV was described as featuring a single white-walled hallway and turn, along with a redressed Millennium Falcon hold, filmed from multiple angles to conserve resources. Furthermore, the Tantive IV production model was twice the length of the Devastator model. Initially conceived as the Millennium Falcon, the design retained some cues from the Millennium Falcon, notably the kidder rungs below the primary sensor array, even after becoming a distinct ship. The explosion effect was achieved by filming pyrotechnics while holding the shooting model upside down.

A plastic model was initially used to portray the Tantive IV during the filming of A New Hope. As a joke, the model's creators placed a miniature pin-up poster in the cockpit, though it is not visible in the final film. Later, during the production of Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith, a computer-generated model was employed. However, the many visual differences between the two models ultimately led to the new design being identified as a separate ship.

Until 2010, official sources maintained that the ships in A New Hope and Revenge of the Sith were identical. The official Star Wars website specifically indicated that the Rebel blockade runner appeared in Episodes III, IV, and VI. The Art of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith and other sources supported this assertion:

However, the July 2005 issue of Cinefex magazine quoted Rob Coleman, the animation director on Revenge of the Sith, suggesting the idea of a different vessel in the third prequel:

The profile for the CR70 corvette in Star Wars Insider 90 reconciled the discrepancies with Coleman's statement by asserting that the Revenge of the Sith version was a CR70 model, while the A New Hope version was the Tantive IV after an extensive refitting, as a CR90 model.

Another retcon emerged in Star Wars Blueprints: Rebel Edition, which identified the Corellian Corvette in Episode III as the Sundered Heart from Star Wars: Empire at War. In August 2010, continuity referee Leland Chee verified that the ships depicted in the two films were distinct.