When the Separatist Crisis exploded and the Clone Wars began, the Republic turned a versatile new warship, the Venator-class Star Destroyer. Venators shared a wedge-shaped design with craft such as the Acclamator-class assault ship, but were suited for a larger range of missions, including anchoring task forces and serving as carriers for fighter operations. These warships – forerunners of the Imperial Star Destroyer -- were commonly known as Jedi cruisers because they served as flagships for Jedi pressed into wartime service as generals.

With the Empire moving swiftly to establish its rule over the galaxy’s planets, older classes of capital ships such as the Jedi cruisers were retired in favor of larger, more powerful warships built in thousands of shipyards. The new Star Destroyer emerged as a highly potent symbol of Imperial power.

Like their predecessors, Imperial Star Destroyers were capable of a number of missions. Besides being formidable weapons platforms, they could serve as staging points for planetary invasions and ferry TIE fighters into battle. They also enforced blockades and cordons, such as the one thrown over Lothal in a bid to capture smugglers and insurgents plaguing the Outer Rim world.

Despite their massive size, Star Destroyers were speedy warships, able to overtake most craft – and if a Star Destroyer couldn’t catch its quarry, it could use its turbolasers to blast it into scrap. Above Tatooine, the Devastator -- Darth Vader’s Star Destroyer -- ran down Princess Leia’s blockade runner Tantive IV before the smaller craft could seek safety in the desert world’s atmosphere.

The Devastator disabled Leia’s ship and used powerful tractor beams to pull the craft into her ventral hangar. Vader then sent a boarding party of stormtroopers to eliminate resistance aboard the captured ship. After dispatching squads of soldiers to Tatooine to search for the missing Death Star plans, the Devastator made the jump to hyperspace. Her destination: the Death Star.

After the Battle of Yavin, the rebels sought a new principal base of operations, one hidden from the Empire’s prowling fleets. The Imperial starfleet responded by scouring the galaxy with Star Destroyers and other craft, launching countless probe droids to investigate planets for uncharted settlements that might be concealing rebel activity.

The Empire’s massive spending on newer, bigger warships continued unabated, with massive Super Star Destroyers such as the Executor dwarfing their Imperial-class brethren. As the Emperor’s mightiest servant, Darth Vader used one of these awe-inspiring dreadnaughts as his flagship while directing the hunt for Luke Skywalker.

At the Battle of Hoth, Imperial Star Destroyers belonging to Vader’s task force were unable to bombard Echo Base because of the rebels’ planetary shield, but deployed to intercept and capture transports trying to escape the doomed Alliance base.

The rebels could only send up two starfighters to escort each transport, but Echo Base had a potent weapon in reserve: a massive ion cannon whose blasts packed enough punch to temporarily disable the Imperial Star Destroyers lurking in space above.

Star Destroyers scrambled to capture a particularly high-value target – the dilapidated freighter Millennium Falcon, infamous for spoiling Vader’s defense of the first Death Star. But the Falcon proved surprising maneuverable, diving out of the path of her pursuers as the Imperial captains took evasive action.

After the Falcon fled into an asteroid field, Vader ignored the peril to his task force, sending his Star Destroyers after the freighter. After the Falcon was flushed from hiding, Captain Needa’s Avenger closed in on the rebel craft on the far side of the asteroids. Needa’s gunners crippled the freighter, but to his astonishment the Falcon responded by moving to attack position and zeroed in on the Avenger’s bridge.

The Falcon hurtled past the Avenger’s bridge and disappeared, leaving the luckless Needa with the unhappy task of reporting his failure to Vader. He didn’t know that Han Solo had shut down his ship’s systems in record time and attached the freighter to the back of the Avenger’s conning tower. When the Star Destroyer jettisoned her garbage before jumping into hyperspace, Solo detached the Falcon and let the freighter float away, apparently undetected.

Vader traveled aboard a Star Destroyer when he inspected the second Death Star, under construction above the remote forest moon of Endor. When the Emperor lured the Alliance into an all-out attack on the new battle station, the Executor and a task force of Imperial Star Destroyers was in position to prevent the rebel warships from escaping.

The Alliance had fallen into the Emperor’s trap: The Death Star’s superlaser was fully operational. Lando Calrissian knew the rebels had to buy time for Han Solo’s commandos to bring down the battle station’s protective shields on Endor. He proposed a desperate new attack plan – send the rebel capital ships to engage the Star Destroyers at point-blank range.

Admiral Ackbar knew the rebels had no alternative, and agreed to Calrissian’s plan. But as rebel cruisers and Imperial Star Destroyers traded destructive broadsides, the Mon Calamari leader found himself appalled by the loss of life on both sides.