This planet's human inhabitants were among the most peaceful beings in the galaxy, although they were not the planet's original form of sentient life. Before human colonists settled Alderaan some 2,500 years before the formation of the Old Republic, the planet was ruled by the Killiks. However, their civilization came to an end near three millennia earlier, when an meteor crashed into the planet and destroyed the Killiks. Thus, when human colonists arrived on Alderaan, they believed themselves to be the first sentients on the planet.

These colonists chose to live in continual harmony with the world around them, and built their cities on top of sandstone bluffs and on stilts in the shallow seas. The capital city of Aldera was eventually built in the crater that was formed when the meteor that killed the Killik crashed into the planet. Alderaan itself was a temperate world that was orbited by three moons. The towering cities were built in such a way that they wouldn't destroy the seas or trample the grasslands, where the strange ruins of the Killik civilization were discovered. The human inhabitants of the planet catalogued over 8,000 species of grasses on the plains, and more than that in species of flowers.

At the age of seventeen, an Alderaanian was considered an adult. It was a well-known custom that the adult members of Alderaan's society never cut their hair, but allowed it to grow into long tresses.

Alderaan was a staunch supporter of the Old Republic, and many of its inhabitants served in the armed forces. However, Alderaan itself remained a weapons-free planet, refusing to develop its own weapons even during the tumultuous times of the Clone Wars. Following the Clone Wars and the widespread destruction caused by it, the government of Alderaan outlawed all weapons. They placed any and all weapons that existed on the planet aboard a transport ship and sent the ship out on a never-ending series of random hyperspace jumps.

The homeworld of the Organa family, Alderaan's role in galactic politics took a detour during the later years of the Old Republic. As Palpatine continued to gain power, the Organas began organizing a resistance to his Presidency. With the implementation of the New Order, Senator Bail Organa was one of many Senators who had signed the Petition of the Two Thousand who was still allowed to serve. However, this meant that Senator Organa had to continually fight to preserve the freedom of his people, since the Emperor wanted to install an Imperial Governor to oversee the planet. After many years of struggling with the New Order, Alderaan became one of the primary supporters of the newly-formed Alliance to Restore the Republic.

Unfortunately, the outspoken dissatisfaction with Palpatine's rule led to the destruction of the planet. After Senator Leia Organa was captured aboard the Tantive IV over Tatooine, she was taken to Grand Moff Tarkin for questioning. Tarkin tried to obtain information from her about the location of the Alliance's hidden base, but she proved too strong to be broken by verbal or drug-induced interrogation. Even when Tarkin threatened to destroy Alderaan with the new Death Star, Leia lied to him about the location of the Alliance's base. Tarkin took no chances, however, and ordered the destruction of the planet.

Alderaan was blown to pieces just before the Battle of Yavin, and all life on the planet was destroyed. The Death Star's superlaser was so powerful that it caused a portion of Alderaan's mass to be ejected directly into hyperspace, causing a ripple in the time-space continuum that evidenced itself as an expanding ring of energy efflux. Some 60,000 natives survived because they were off-world at the time, and were granted a unique status within the Alliance, as well as the New Republic. The asteroid field that formed from Alderaan's rubble became known as the Graveyard of Alderaan, and Alderaanian survivors made regular pilgrimages to the site to honor their dead.

In order to avoid public outcries about the destruction of Alderaan, Imperial propaganda created several convincing stories to cover up the truth. One story claimed that Alderaanian scientists had created their own superweapon, in hopes of using it against the Empire, but that the weapon exploded during testing and destroyed the planet. Another story, devised to explain the presence of the Death Star in the system, claimed that the Death Star had been in the area to perform its initial tests on lifeless moons. Alliance agents tried to sabotage the tests, which resulted in the Death Star's laser accidentally firing on the planet, rather than a lifeless target.

Although the loss of life that occurred with the planet's destruction was horrible, the Alliance was faced with an even more devastating consequence, because most of the Alliance's credits were stored in secret bank accounts on Alderaan. The loss of these credits forced the Alliance to launch daring missions to worlds like Muunilinst, in an effort to acquire the credits that were necessary to continue funding the fight against the Empire.

Source Abbreviations Listing - E4, E4R, CPL, GA, ISU, SOL, RD, TCD, HG, OWS, DSTR, LJ9, RF1