- Date
- 1 BBY
- Continuity
- Canon
- Place
- Battle of Scarif and Tatooine approach
Chronology note. Following Star Wars: Timelines, this pre-Yavin event is placed in 1 BBY. Older publications sometimes label it 0 BBY. About the dating convention →
Data reaches an escape route
The plans transmitted from the Scarif installation reached the Rebel flagship Profundity. Darth Vader boarded the vessel and fought through Rebel soldiers as they transferred the valuable data cartridge. The plans were handed through a narrow corridor just before the Tantive IV detached and escaped.
A senator becomes the custodian
Leia Organa, a leader in the Rebel Alliance who publicly retained a diplomatic role, was aboard the blockade runner. She received the schematics and hoped to deliver them to Obi-Wan Kenobi or other trusted participants who could help the rebellion use the information.
The Empire follows the ship
Darth Vader traced the Tantive IV to the Tatooine system and used the Star Destroyer Devastator to capture it. Leia knew her diplomatic status alone would not protect the evidence. She hid the data in R2-D2 and recorded a message seeking help.
Anthropological assessment
This transfer is an example of chain of custody under extreme danger. Different people risked their lives to ensure a piece of evidence survived, even when the original researchers and infiltrators could not.
Interactive evidence lab
Open a chronology check or switch perspectives. The result appears immediately below your selection.
Did the Tantive IV retrieve the plans directly from the Scarif computer vault?
No. The data was transmitted to the Profundity, transferred, and then carried away by Leia's ship.
Original source investigation · Scarif to Endor
The plans survive by changing custodians
At the end of the Scarif battle, Leia Organa's Alderaanian ship becomes the next link in the chain of custody for the Death Star plans.
The stolen engineering record did not travel from the Citadel tower directly to Leia in a personal handoff. The official Death Star Plans Databank identifies an electromagnetic cartridge recovered at Scarif, its transmission to the Profundity, and a subsequent transfer to the Tantive IV. These successive steps matter because custody changes the risks attached to information. A secret stored in a fortified Imperial archive is protected by a state, while the same data aboard a moving Rebel-associated vessel is vulnerable to detection, interception and destruction.
The Tantive IV had an established public identity as a vessel used by Bail and Leia Organa on Senate and humanitarian missions. That background helped the Organa family move through a political order where legal status and informal suspicion existed at the same time. After Scarif, the ship's role as carrier of the plans gave the Empire a concrete reason to pursue it. Leia's public office did not make the secret safe, and the vessel's diplomatic associations could not erase what Imperial security personnel believed it had received.
This passage should not be confused with the later boarding above Tatooine. Escaping the immediate battle preserved the data but did not end the chase. The ship still needed a route to an Alliance recipient capable of interpreting the plans. One can interpret the episode as an example of trust distributed across a network rather than vested in a single hero. Those who transmitted, copied, transported and later concealed the material did not all possess the same expertise or legal protection. Their cooperation made the engineering evidence more durable than the people and ships attacked along its route.
Test the historical record: Did the Tantive IV retrieve the engineering data by landing inside Scarif's Citadel archive?
Correction and insight: No. Jyn's group retrieved the plans inside Scarif; the data was transmitted to a Rebel ship and subsequently transferred to the Tantive IV.
Primary source: Star Wars original Canon film and Lucasfilm: Death Star Plans Databank. The archived events and the comparative interpretation are distinguished; this is not a reconstruction of unrecorded dialogue or personal testimony.
Related records: scarif transmits death star plans 1 → · tantive iv vader boards leia plans 0 →
Sources and methods
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story; StarWars.com Tantive IV and Leia Organa databanks. Explore the original background →. Interpretive analysis is distinguished from information shown in the story. Captions disclose when artwork is a character portrait rather than a depiction of the specific historical scene.
Canon · 1 BBY · Pre-Yavin history
Tantive IV escapes with the plans
Documented historical sequence
After Scarif's data reached the Profundity, Darth Vader boarded the rebel flagship. Surviving soldiers passed the copied plans into the Tantive IV, which escaped with Leia Organa aboard. Vader's pursuit and subsequent boarding of Leia's ship led directly into the opening of A New Hope.
Institutions, identity and material life
Information became a physical object carried under extreme danger. The scene links a large naval battle to individuals moving a data cartridge along corridors. Leia's diplomatic standing provided political cover but did not prevent Imperial pursuit.
Why 1 BBY, rather than 0 BBY?
Recent Star Wars chronologies use the Battle of Yavin as the zero point. Rogue One and events immediately before that battle belong to 1 BBY rather than a separate 0 BBY year. The character or story illustration at the top provides context, not a photograph of the entire event.
Test the historical evidence
Two graded questions with corrections and explanations.