| PLANET | |
| Starkiller Base | |
 Starkiller Base | |
| Full name: | Starkiller Base |
| Classification: | class M planet |
| Affiliation: | Der'kal Empire |
| Location: | Beta Quadrant, Starkiller Base system |
| Moon(s): | 0 |
| Dominant Species: | Human |
| Population: | Unknown (classified) |
| Diameter: | 660 kilometers |
Starkiller Base was a mobile ice planet located in the Beta Quadrant that served as a stronghold of the Der'kal Empire. Commanded by an unofficial triumvirate of General Armitage Hux, Kylo Ren and Captain Phasma, it was armed with a superweapon capable of destroying entire star systems halfway across the galaxy. The Der'kal Empire viewed this ability as an evolution of the planet-destroying capabilities of the battle station designs, with the weapon serving as the ultimate culmination of old research into dark energy translations and hyperspace tunneling.
The planet was ultimately destroyed by a Federation attack due to a weak point exploited by pilot Poe Dameron, causing the implosion of the entire planet as the superweapon was firing upon the Federation base on D'Qar. The stored stellar energy then expanded, causing the planet to turn into a star.
Description[]
The superweapon installed in the planet's crust
Starkiller Base was a mobile, forested ice planet rich in kyber crystals that was located in the Beta Quadrant. The Der'kal Empire, a regime that believed themselves to be the successors to the ideals of the First Der'kal Empire, converted the planet into a base of operations owing to its unique energy-transmitting crystalline deposits, and used it to house a superweapon capable of destroying entire star systems. The superweapon consumed suns as a power source. Its mobility was provided by rocket ports on the far side of the base.
The weapon was powered by a type of dark energy called "quintessence", which was ubiquitous in the universe, and offered a practically unlimited power source to the First Order. Using a star as a power source, an array of collectors on one side of the planet would gather dark energy in stages, redirecting it to the planetary core, where it was held in place by the natural magnetic field of the planet, as well as an artificial containment field maintained by the machinery the First Order had installed within the crust. As the planetary magnetic field would not be enough to contain the amount of energy that the weapon required, a thermal oscillator was built into the planet. It generated an oscillating containment field which allowed the installation to expend considerably less energy at containing the dark energy than would be required using a steady containment field. A colossal hollow cylinder, large enough to dominate the view of the planet from orbit, penetrated the containment field to a predetermined distance, in order to direct the blast towards its target, and also to absorb its energy, which would otherwise cause catastrophic groundquakes. This design made the weapon vulnerable when it was fully charged, as the destruction of the containment field oscillator the moment before the weapon fired would release the accumulated energy not through the firing cylinder, but throughout the planetary core where it was being held, leading to the gradual collapse of the surface into the core.
As Starkiller Base was charged through the power of stars, it gradually blocked out sunlight until, running at full capacity, it extinguished it completely, leaving the surface in darkness. In order for the weapon to fire, its weapons 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 to a state known as "phantom energy", and left the planet behind, tearing a hole through hyperspace along a perfectly linear path. The people stationed at the base called the dimension through which the phantom energy beam traveled "sub-hyperspace", and this method of delivering the payload was near-instantaneous across vast distances. The rotation and inclination of the planet had to be taken into account for the weapon to target something, and also the lack of obstacles between it and the target, as the phantom energy beam would only be intercepted by an object of sufficient mass (like a planet). When the phantom energy struck a planet, the interaction produced enough heat to ignite the planet's core, creating a pocket nova. The space-time disruption caused by the phantom energy's passage would make the nova instantaneously visible thousands of light years away, for a short time.
Starkiller Base was protected by a planetary shield that was strong enough to deflect any bombardment, and could not be penetrated by any ship traveling at sublight speeds. The shield had an exploitable flaw, however; a fractional refresh rate necessary for a shield of its size, which could be exploited by a single ship exiting hyperspace inside the shield, with barely a second to right itself before crashing on the planet's surface. The shield control was also localized, which meant that, in case it was disabled via malfunction or sabotage, the planet would be unprotected in the time it took technicians to arrive at shield control and reestablish its operation. If shield control was damaged beyond repair, shield control had to be overridden, which was a time-consuming process. These flaws were utilized by the Resistance to destroy the base. The Millennium Falcon entered the shield after traveling through hyperspace and crash-landed on the edge of a cliff.
Several structures embedded on the surface of Starkiller Base
In addition to the primary weapon and shield control, Starkiller Base's facilities included numerous ship hangars, sanitation infrastructure, amenities for the garrison of stormtroopers, flooding tunnels and a room dedicated to communications with Supreme Leader Vur'naa via hologram. Snowtroopers utilized Light Infantry Utility Vehicles to help maintain the vast technological accomplishment that was Starkiller Base, as its technology penetrated the entire planet. Crew and support staff helped maintain this vast technological terror in both surface and subsurface facilities, while the sheer size of the planet meant that droid workers were essential in maintaining the base. Sentry droids utilized rolling casters to travel through the base's interior, while patrol droids utilized long-range communications antennae to survey the wilderness above. The planet was also host to the largest known deployment of Der'kal Empire military forces by the time of its destruction, with its command and operations crew drawing from both Army and Navy ranks.
History[]
- "The weapon. It is ready. I believe the time has come to use it. We shall destroy the Federation."
"Go. Oversee preparations."
"Yes, Supreme Leader." - — General Hux, and Supreme Leader Vur'naa
General Hux orders the firing of the Starkiller Base superweapon
The planet that would become Starkiller Base was once a remote and mysterious world known only to a handful in the galaxy.
The founders of the Der'kal Empire secured research logs from secret laboratories detailing the planet. After searching for decades in the Beta Quadrant for a world that met the planet's exact specifications, the Der'kal Empire eventually located it. The planet was initially scouted by snowtrooper teams who eliminated any native life forms that could have posed a threat to the extensive future excavation and construction project. The ice planet soon became known as Starkiller Base, and became the unofficial headquarters of the Der'kal Empire. Mining operations were conducted in order to harvest the planet's kyber crystal deposits for use in the Der'kal Empire 's war machine, and after sufficient excavation was completed, the Empire converted Starkiller Base into a mobile superweapon platform, with the colossal superlaser array embedded in the planet's crust. The superweapon housed in the base bore some similarities to the the two planet-destroying battle stations built by the First Der'kal Empire, but it possessed far more power than its predecessors and was more than twice the size, as it was built into a planet. Starkiller Base represented a technological step forward in power, as the Der'kal Empire believed that they needed to become more powerful than the fallen First Der'kal Empire if they were to succeed in enacting their goals. Starkiller Base drew its power from the energy of stars, a possible reason for its name.
The culmination of the First Der'kal Empire's research into dark energy translations and hyperspace tunneling, the enormous arrays of specially designed collectors used the power of a sun to attract and send dark energy to a containment unit at the core of the planet, where it was held and built up until the weapon was ready to fire. Its ability to concentrate dark energy in this manner gave Starkiller Base access to a practically unlimited source of energy.
The first test of the base's weaponry, which had already been charged by draining a star before moving into position, happened right before the Battle of Takodana. After gaining Supreme Leader Vur'naa's approval, General Hux ordered the base to fire on the capital of the Separatists, Hosnian Prime, and four other planets in the Hosnian system, utterly destroying the planets and a significant portion of the Separatist fleet.
Destruction[]
- "So we disable the shields, we take out the oscillator, and we blow up their big gun. All right, let’s go."
- — Poe Dameron
Starkiller Base collapsing
As Starkiller Base prepared to destroy the planet D'Qar, the site of the Federation's base, the Federation planned an attack of their own. Using information from Typhuss James Kira, pilot Temmin Wexley flew a reconnaissance mission to the Starkiller Base system, acquiring detailed scan data on the base. Using the data, Finn revealed a critical weak point—the Starkiller's thermal oscillator—that, if destroyed when the weapon was fully charged, but before it fired, would eliminate the base. Squadrons of T-70 fighters engaged TIE fighters defending the Starkiller, while the Millennium Falcon bypassed its shields and deployed a ground team to disable the shield generators. When the T-70 fighters tried to take down the thermal oscillator but failed, Han Solo and his team delved deeper into the Starkiller's subterranean complex, with the aim of reaching the weak point themselves. Along the way they re-encountered Rey, who had freed herself. Chewbacca detonated explosives on columns supporting an access tunnel that led into the thermal oscillator's conduit. With the tunnel open, Poe Dameron, a commander in the Starfleet fighter Corps, entered it and destroyed the conduit, starting a chain reaction of explosions across the planet's surface. The planet imploded and then exploded, the stored material from the drained sun expanding to create a new star in the planet's place, turning the star system into a binary.
Legacy[]
Despite the loss of Starkiller Base, the Der'kal Empire, having decimated the government of the New Republic, began to reign. Confident enough to emerge from the shadows, Snoke decided to command his forces himself from his flagship, the Mega-class Star Dreadnought the Supremacy. Acknowledging that their headquarters had been discovered, the Resistance was forced to evacuate D'Qar. The Federation was nearly decimated by the Der'kal Navy. With a handful of survivors remaining, including Admiral Caitlin Thomas, the Federation fled to Crait and then escaped from certain defeat aboard the Millennium Falcon and Delta Flyer II thanks to the efforts of a MACO squad and Rey.
While talking about their adventures, Dameron revealed to Rey that when Starkiller Base destroyed the Hosnian system, he initially thought they were finished, assuming that the laser was to hit Takodana. He then stated that even the Federation wasn't sure about what Starkiller was, as they only knew its location from following the trajectory of the lasers.