Anakin Skywalker

"You were the Chosen One! It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them! Bring balance to the Force, not leave it in darkness!"

- Obi-Wan Kenobi, to the fallen Anakin Skywalker

Anakin Skywalker was a Human male who served the Galactic Republic as a Jedi Knight, and later the Galactic Empire as the Sith Lord Darth Vader. Skywalker was also the Chosen One of Jedi prophecy, destined to defeat the Sith and bring balance to the Force.

Biography
Conceived by midi-chlorians, the symbiotic organisms that allowed individuals to touch the Force, Anakin Skywalker was born to the slave Shmi Skywalker on the desert world of Tatooine. Even at a young age, Skywalker exhibited exceptional piloting and engineering skills, creating the protocol droid C-3PO. When he was ten, Skywalker encountered the Jedi Qui-Gon Jinn and Padmé Amidala, and he helped them secure the parts they needed for their starship by winning the Boonta Eve Classic podracing event&mdash;only to learn that he had also won his freedom in doing so.

Reluctantly leaving his mother behind, Skywalker accompanied Jinn and his group to the Republic's capital of Coruscant and participated in the Battle of Naboo, helping to free Amidala's homeworld from the armies of the Trade Federation. While Jinn was killed during the battle, Jinn's student Obi-Wan Kenobi followed Jinn's wishes and took on Skywalker as his Padawan, and much of the Jedi Council believed that Skywalker was the Chosen One of Jedi prophecy.

Ten years later, as the Separatist Crisis threatened to tear the Republic apart, Skywalker was reunited Amidala when he was assigned to protect her from assassins. The two grew close during the course of the assignment, though they were caught up in the Battle of Geonosis and the beginning of the Clone Wars between the Republic and the Confederacy of Independent Systems. Losing an arm during the fighting, Skywalker received a cybernetic replacement, and he and Amidala were secretly married in the days after the battle, in violation of the Jedi Code.

During the Clone Wars, which raged for the next three years, Skywalker was granted the rank of Jedi Knight, and took on the Togruta Ahsoka Tano as his apprentice. Throughout the Clone Wars, Skywalker's anger and sense of loss pushed him ever closer to the dark side of the Force, and his visions of Amidala dying in childbirth made him desperate to find a way to save his wife. Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, who was in fact the Sith Lord Darth Sidious, manipulated Skywalker into becoming his apprentice with the promise of saving Amidala, and Skywalker became the Sith Lord Darth Vader as Palpatine transformed the Republic into the Empire and decimated the Jedi Order.



Vader and Kenobi clashed on Mustafar after Vader attacked his wife in the belief that she had betrayed him, and Vader was left limbless and ravaged by fire at the end of their battle. Encased in a suit of life-sustaining black armor and believing his wife to be dead, Vader embraced his role as the Emperor's right hand and enforcer.

When the Galactic Civil War erupted between the Empire and the Alliance to Restore the Republic nineteen years later, the Death Star&mdash;the Empire's greatest superweapon&mdash;was destroyed by a young Rebel pilot despite Vader's efforts, and Vader became obsessed with discovering the pilot's identity, only to learn that it was Luke Skywalker: his own son, born before Amidala's death.

Vader continued to pursue both Skywalker and the Alliance over the next three years, finally luring his son into a trap on the mining colony of Cloud City, where the two dueled. Vader revealed his identity to Skywalker, though his son refused to join him and escaped. When Darth Sidious learned of Skywalker's existence, he set in motion his own plans to recruit Skywalker and thereby replace Vader, but Skywalker surrendered himself to Imperial forces on the forest moon of Endor in hopes of swaying him back to the Jedi.

In a final duel on the second Death Star as the Battle of Endor raged around them, Skywalker and Vader fought each other, and Vader refused his son's attempts to redeem him, learning that Skywalker had a twin sister named Leia in the process. Skywalker defeated his father but refused to kill him, and when Sidious attempted to kill the young man, Vader&mdash;moved by his son's love&mdash;abandoned the dark side and sacrificed himself to destroy the Emperor, fulfilling the prophecy of the Chosen One. Mortally wounded, Anakin made peace with his son and became one with the Force.