PRINCESS LEIA ORGANA
Courtesy of http://www.starwars.com
Separated at an early age from a mother she barely knew and a heritage that
was hidden from her, Leia Organa was raised as the daughter of Viceroy and
First Chairman of the planet Alderaan, Bail Organa, a hero of the Clone Wars.
Leia grew up in a highly-charged political atmosphere and watched as
Senator Palpatine took increasing control of the galactic government,
eventually declaring himself Emperor.
She became the youngest Senator in galactic history, even as Palpatine
committed more and more atrocities in the name of pacifying the galaxy.
Leia is at the heart of many of the Rebel Alliance's most secret missions,
using her consular ship, the Tantive IV to travel throughout the galaxy with
diplomatic immunity. Near Tatooine, on a mission to recruit General Obi-Wan
Kenobi into the Rebellion, she and her ship are captured by the Darth Vader's
Star Destroyer Devastator. Leia manages to get top-secret intercepted plans
for the Death Star battle station to Alliance forces, but not without paying a
supreme price: the destruction of her home planet of Alderaan.
After the Battle of Yavin, Leia becomes a full-time leader of the Rebel
Alliance. Those who have rescued her from a Death Star cell, Luke
Skywalker, Han Solo and the Wookiee Chewbacca - along with the droids
R2-D2 and C-3PO - become a kind of second family to her. She helps lead
the evacuation of the Rebel's Echo Base on Hoth and travels in Solo's
Millennium Falcon to Cloud City above Bespin to repair the ship. But Solo's
old gambling buddy, Lando Calrissian, betrays them.
Months later, Leia enters the palace of Jabba the Hutt in a bounty hunter
disguise and manages to free Solo from his carbonite prison, but Jabba
discovers her and reduces her to one of his slave girls. She soon seizes an
opportunity to choke the crime lord to death, then joins Solo on a strike team
to Endor to destroy a generator for a shield that protects a second Death
Star. She needs all her diplomatic skills to gain the help of a primitive tribe of
Ewoks that they encounter, but the Rebels persevere and Leia is brought to
the threshold of amazing discoveries about herself and her family.
