Sometimes, I just like to sit back and enjoy Star Wars without overthinking the logic. At the end of the day, it’s a fantasy universe. But every now and then, something sticks out, and I can’t help but wonder, Wait… that’s not how that should work, right?
One of those questions for me was about the destruction of Alderaan in A New Hope. How many people actually died? Was there ever an exact number? Well, I did some digging, and not only did I find the answer—I also found out what happened afterward.
Casualties from the Destruction of Alderaan
If you remember the scene from A New Hope, after Leia gives Tarkin fake information about the Rebel’s base on Dantooine, it’s because she has to point to a random location to protect the real hideout. Plus, she’s trying to stop Tarkin from blowing up her homeworld, Alderaan. But, of course, Tarkin—being the cold-blooded villain he is—still gives the order to fire, wiping out the entire planet.
Now, the detail I want to focus on is what happens right after the explosion. We see Ben Kenobi react to the loss of life on Alderaan. He says:
“I felt a great disturbance in the Force… as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.”
Based on this, we can assume millions of lives were lost in an instant. But honestly, that’s not enough for me—I want exact numbers.
The Star Wars databank mentions that the Death Star’s destruction of Alderaan killed billions, but it doesn’t give an exact count. Here’s what it says:
“In a display of the Death Star’s might, Grand Moff Tarkin used the space station to destroy the Princess’s home planet of Alderaan, killing billions.”
So, how many people actually died? The only way to figure it out is by looking at Alderaan’s population before it was obliterated.
According to Dawn of Rebellion, an era sourcebook for Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars roleplaying system, Alderaan had a population of 2 billion before its destruction—95% human and 5% other species.
With this, we can estimate that nearly 2 billion lives were lost in Alderaan’s destruction. However, not all Alderaanians perished that day. Some were off-world when the Death Star struck, managing to survive the planet’s annihilation.
What Happened to All the Survivors of Alderaan
We don’t have an official source that confirms the exact number of Alderaanian survivors, but most estimates suggest that around 60,000 people made it out alive. However, many of them had already immigrated to other planets long before the destruction of their homeworld.
One notable example comes from the short story One Thousand Levels Down, which introduces us to Anandra Milon—a human from Alderaan who had already settled on Coruscant when her planet was destroyed. After the disaster, she and her brother were forced to flee as stormtroopers began targeting Coruscant’s Alderaanian population.
The book also provides insight into the lives of those who had left Alderaan behind, describing how “The planet Alderaan was gone, destroyed by the Empire for crimes no one understood. The Alderaanian people—first- and second-generation immigrants who had shops and restaurants and houses on 3204, who celebrated Coronation Day and imported their favorite fruits from a planet they rarely visited—were alive and frightened and angry.”
In the Princess Leia comic series, we get another glimpse of Alderaanian survivors. Before Alderaan’s destruction, Leia embarks on a mission called “The Mission to Rescue the Survivors of Alderaan.” It seems she already had some knowledge of the Empire’s plan to wipe out her homeworld. During the mission, we learn that most of the survivors had regrouped within the Alderaan Flotilla, a fleet that took refuge among the remnants of the shattered planet.
Originally, many Alderaanians relocated to Orowood Tower on Coruscant, but most abandoned it after Grand Admiral Thrawn’s assault on the planet. By 19 ABY, Leia was the last Alderaanian with a home in the tower.