22

Anakin Skywalker’s Cybernetic Arm

Location: Coruscant

Date: 22 BBY

Cybernetic enhancements and droid components are so commonplace that at first glance there would appear to be nothing special about this artificial limb. Its five spindly metal digits are capped with electrostatic fingertips that simulate the feeling of human touch. Exposed wiring, like nerve endings, can be found threaded throughout. Without armored shielding or, at minimum, a glove, this could easily be snagged, severed, or tangled.

The mechno-limb belonged to the Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker, after his right arm was lopped off in a duel with Count Dooku during the Battle of Geonosis. Given Anakin’s talent for mechanical engineering, which gave rise to the protocol droid C-3PO, it is possible that he fashioned it from parts and pieces himself. More likely, the prosthesis was speedily created for him by the physicians of the Grand Army of the Republic. As such, it would have been one of the first of many they constructed to make wounded Jedi fit for the frontlines of war. Over time, the hand was upgraded with a firmer framework and more responsive cybernetic technology.

This particular cybernetic limb undoubtedly had murky origins. It also has greater significance. Anakin was lauded as one of the strongest of all the Jedi, brave in battle, and strongly protective of friends and family. As he was gradually seduced to the dark side, he became the Sith Lord Darth Vader, a cybernetic beast more machine than man. This mechno-arm thus serves as a portent of Anakin Skywalker’s grim future.

When the limb was fitted to his still-raw flesh, no one could have guessed that this heroic young man would become a monster. It was assumed that his mechno-arm would allow Anakin to carry on his life more or less normally. For Anakin, unfortunately, his cybernetic prosthesis proved to be just the first of many artificial augmentations that would eventually render him utterly unrecognizable to those he loved.

DK