Many Bothans Died, Anyway
Mon Mothma’s utterance of the phase “Many Bothans died to bring you this information” in Return of the Jedi was in reference to the technical readouts of the second Death Star in construction above Endor, not the first iteration of the battle station. That small detail, however, did not stop the EU from slaughtering a bunch of Bothans for the first time round anyway.
Sometime before the Polis Massa cell recovered the technical data stolen during the Death Star uprising, a defecting Imperial Moff, Kalast, worked with the Bothan Spynet to crack a series of Imperial command codes related to the Death Star’s systems and transmit them to the alliance. A furious Palpatine traveled to the Bothan homeworld, Bothawui, to punish its people for the Spynet’s complicity, personally slaughtering untold numbers of Bothans alongside his personal guard. A surviving Bothan begged for their life by revealing the Tantive IV as the location of the stolen codes and plans were being sent to, leading to Vader’s chase.
First Covered In: Star Wars: Empire at War (2006)
