Inside Intel: Starkiller Base

The latest edition of Inside Intel takes a look at the frightening power of Starkiller Base, carved from the ice of Ilum to serve as the signature weapon of the First Order.

Prior to the Starkiller’s discovery, Resistance pilot Poe Dameron and Resistance spy Kazuda Xiono traveled to a system in the Unknown Regions where Kaz learned of First Order activity, as seen in the Star Wars Resistance animated series. Upon reaching the sector, Poe Dameron’s ship sensors indicated they were in the Dassal system, however the star of the system was mysteriously gone. Further investigating the area, the two Resistance pilots found that some of the planets had been cored and, as a result, virtually destroyed. What Poe and Kaz didn’t know at the time was that they were looking at test subjects for the First Order’s Starkiller weapon.

Dark energy, abundant in the galaxy, powered Starkiller’s weapon. Harvesting it, however, was not thought possible until the First Order’s success. Using research from the Empire’s Project Celestial Power (the same program that helped create the Death Star), the First Order used the power of a sun to focus and gather dark energy with collector arrays. The First Order had discovered, though, that the most effective way to store the dark energy was by using a planet’s natural magnetic field, hence the need to core planets. This, combined with an additional and artificial containment field maintained by the First Order, stored the energy as the weapon charged. Once the star was completely consumed, the weapon was ready to fire.