User:Solus/WIP

"This is not living."

- Darth Vader's thoughts

Darth Vader's suit, which was essentially a mobile life-support system, was a suit of armor donned by Anakin Skywalker after his duel with Obi-Wan Kenobi on Mustafar because of his serious injuries accumulated there. It was designed to maintain and protect the young ex-Jedi's charred body. His suit followed an ancient Sith tradition, in which the warriors of the dark side would adorn themselves in heavy armor. The suit was constructed using various methods of Sith alchemy which served to augment Vader's severely diminished physical strength and vitality.

The armor encased Vader completely, leaving no burned flesh exposed. Vader slowly learned to live in this kind of isolation and anonymity as he off and on tinkered with it and had to repair its functions. Though he became used to it, Vader longed for the ability to be truly Human again, and though he tried to slowly work himself up to it, he labored in vain.

Design
"A magnificent jewel box, created both to protect and to exhibit the greatest treasure of the Sith. Terrifying. Mesmerizing. Perfect."

- Palpatine's thoughts upon seeing Darth Vader's armor for the first time.

Designed after that of archaic Sith armor, Darth Vader's suit was made to be both intimidating and fearsome. His helmet was a highly polished black upside-down rounded cone to fit around his head with the front thereof sliced out so that it would show his 'face.' This helmet had a raised ridge that ran from between his eyes to the back of his head, where it merged into the durasteel, obsidian, and plasteel of the helmet itself. Two less jagged ridges swept, curving, over the eyes of Vader's mask proper and served to accent them. This helmet locked into the mask.

The mask itself went halfway around Vader's head. The top of this mask was crowned with a curcular interface dotted with myriad squares in a kind of pattern around a disc of silver. this diesk had several holes punched into it, and seemed to serve, alone with its squares surrounding it, as a kind of interface connection between the mask and the helmet. Around the unseen part of the mask, the part covered by the helmet, were designs engraved in the mask and created by wires. Also hidden beneath his mask were four grill-like squares of red, accented by ridged criss-crosses of yellow wire. The face of the mask was somewhat exaggerated and angular, with two ridges above his eyes that fit in with those of his helmet. The eyes were large and goggling, like those of a fish. This front part of the mask was of a more highly polished black material than that of the back, which seemed more rubbery, as seen when Luke removed it when Vader was dying. The ridged bridge of the nose seemed lost in the largeness of the eyes, but suddenly jetted out into a harsh caricature of a nose. The mask's cheekbones were boxy and angular until they curved slightly to join the nose at its base. The base of the nose offers the only splash of color - silver - on the mask. This silver is in the shape of a half-oval, with a triangular grill growing out from beneath it that served as an air filter.

The collar wrapped around Vader's neck, and was fairly normally shaped around the back, but slanted upward in the front to meet the mask at the bottom of its triangular grill. The back, which sloped upwards a bit at the base of his neck, was speckled with metal studs and interfaces. The two sides of the front were edged by two tubes that followed the edge until it reached the place at the base of the triangular grill when worn. At the end of these tubes were two silver studs. On top of slanted front of this collar were several interfaces, with wires running back from it to the back of the collar. From the sides of the collar came two metal sideways-facing stems with a horseshoe-like fixture to their heads. These, when worn, touched the outer corners of Vader's mouth.

Vader's shoulder armor appeared to be one piece that protected his whole shoulder area. The durasteel material was of a grey color with several black vertical stripes. Around the neck of the full-shoulder pauldron was a black chain, and to the upper 'seam' of the armor was connected Vader's black, flowing, nearly floor-length armorweave cape. Coming from beneath this armor was a black tabard open in the front. It reached down to his knees, and though it was not as hardy and more flimsy, it somewhat resembled the kama of some of the higher-ranking Phase-II armored clonetroopers.

Vader wore a ribbed, padded, multi-ply body glove that covered everything below his neck. This flexible, quilted suit was blast-dampening. On his hands he wore black gloves made with a unique micronized iron that could deflect anything short of a lightsaber blow, and his right glove was made to be nearly indestructible. Around his entire abdominal area, he wore a plastoid girdle that protected his organic and synthetic internal organs, and on his back, hidden by his cloak, he wore a flat black backpack. Over his solar plexus, he wore a chest unit that served to regulate many of the life-support functions of the suit. It had three slots and several rectangular buttons adorning the unusually vulnerable piece of machinery. His belt, which went over his tabard, and also was mostly black, had three metal boxes around the front. The middle one had a silver mechanism adorning it, and the other two were symmetrical blocks decorated with several green, yellow, and grey buttons. Vader's shiny black all-terrain combat boots contained shin armor of durasteel that hinged on the sides of the foot of the boot to allow him to walk.

Notes and references
Darth Vaders Rüstung