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star wars - Why was Vader so obsessed with capturing the Millennium Falcon in the asteroid field?


What is the importance of one rebel/smuggler ship that he is so obsessed with getting his hands on it?


As far as I can tell, he has no way of sensing who was on board (neither could he have seen Leia running into it, nor did Leia seem to pop up on his force-radar). However, he could sense that Luke wasn't on board (he didn't state this, but I think it's a reasonable assumption). Also he had no way of knowing that the Falcon's crew consisted of close friends of Luke (to use as lure). Note that he didn't seem to bother to send star destroyers after the escaping rebel ships from Hoth.



Answer



I need to pull up some canon sources, but going on pure logic,





  • He knew that Millennium Falcon was the ship which blew out his "almost saved Death Star 1 from Luke" attempt




  • He knew that Falcon was the ship that rescued Leia from DS1 earlier.


    So Falcon was heavily linked with Leia even from events in Episode IV, never mind intervening time between it and Hoth.




  • More likely than not, Vader also had an idea of who Han Solo was, since:





    • Vader was generally wired into intelligence, including from bounty hunters.




    • Solo had prior run-ins with both Imperials (he served as an Imperial officer, freed Chewbacca, was boarded during a Kessel Run, saved Nal Hutta from a rogue Imperial general, etc) and bounty hunters including Fett




    • Solo was considered to be on top of his profession. He was one of Jabba's top smugglers.







To use a modern term - a "high value target".



Also, remember that Vader was a relatively powerful Jedi Sith - he may have been able to have some precognitive skills. The Emperor certainly did, on a major scale.


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