From Ch 5 of the Rebel Sourcebook, 2nd Edition,
which I'm working on now:
The Alliance gained the majority of its origi-
nal complement of starfighters through the
wholesale defection of planetary and systems
defense forces after President Palpatine took
the title of Emperor and before he had solidified
his hold on the Navy. During those months,
literally thousands of pilots went "underground"
and joined the growing Rebellion. However, most
of these ships were outdated and in poor repair,
unable to stand up against the Navy's modern
starfighters.
A notable addition to the Alliance space forces
was gained when the entire senior design staff of
Incom Corporation defected to the Alliance,
taking with them the plans and prototype mod-
els for the X-wing starfighter. As most of you
know, the X-wing has stood up very well indeed
to the Navy's vessels.
As Palpatine secured his position and crafted
the Navy into his complete tool, it became more
and more difficult to entice home defense forces
into defecting and virtually impossible to ac-
quire starfighters through arms merchants at
any cost - Imperial reprisals were greatly feared
even before the Death Star. Therefore, the Alli-
ance had to learn to build Its own starfighters.
The Alliance is always searching for places to
build new starfighter manufacturing facilities. If
you have knowledge of a likely site, contact your
Sector Supply Secretary immediately. It should
be noted, however, that the Empire is extremely
determined to find and destroy our capacity to
build spacefaring vessels; planets they discover
harboring such are routinely space-bombed into
rubble.
