The Galactic Civil War (–5 ABY), also referred to as the revolution, was a galactic power struggle in which the Alliance to Restore the Republic waged a rebellion against the ruling Galactic Empire in an attempt to restore democratic rule to the galaxy. The origins of rebellion could be traced to the Clone Wars, when rebel cells were equipped by the Galactic Republic and the Jedi Order to fight against the Confederacy of Independent Systems. After Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, secretly the Sith Lord Darth Sidious, transformed the Republic into the Empire and destroyed the Jedi Order, many rebel cells began fighting the Empire. A number of these cells eventually joined together and became the Alliance to Restore the Republic.
The war had officially begun by the year 4 BBY. The Rebel Alliance was officially created in 2 BBY with Mon Mothma’s Declaration of the Rebel Alliance. In 0 BBY, the Alliance scored its first major victory against the Empire by stealing the plans to the Death Star, the Empire’s planet-destroying battle station, in the Battle of Scarif. The plans were brought to the Rebel Alliance by Princess Leia Organa, with the help of companions such as Luke Skywalker and Han Solo. An analysis of the plans led the Rebels to launch the Battle of Yavin, in which Skywalker, with Solo’s assistance, destroyed the Death Star. A series of follow-up attacks by the Alliance, including an assault on the Empire’s primary weapons factory, left the Empire reeling from the Alliance’s advances. As a result, the Empire hunted the Alliance across the galaxy under the leadership of Darth Vader, a Dark Lord of the Sith and the Emperor’s chief enforcer. Vader’s forces located the Alliance on the planet Hoth. The resulting Battle of Hoth forced the Alliance to flee the snow planet and sent its fleet into hiding.
Six months later, in the year 4 ABY, the Emperor allowed the Alliance to learn of the existence of a second Death Star as part of a trap to lure the Alliance to its dest
