EV-9D9

"Ah, good. New acquisitions. You are a protocol droid, are you not?''" "I am C-3PO, human-cyborg&mdash;" "Yes or no will do." "''Oh. Well, yes."

- EV-9D9 and C-3PO

EV-9D9 (Eve-Ninedenine), also referred to as simply as 9D9, was a feminine MerenData EV supervisor droid who, originally a peaceful, hardworking moisture vaporator mechanic, had a programming defect that made her enjoy tormenting and dismembering other droids. She was acquired by the Hutt crime lord Jabba Desilijic Tiure, who made her chief of his palace's Cyborg Operations after a reprogramming, where she oversaw its droid pool with the assistance of her smelter droid devotee, 8D8. When Luke Skywalker gifted Jabba R2-D2 and C-3PO in 4 ABY, shortly before the Battle of Endor, EV-9D9 assigned them positions in her master's droid pool and was deactivated sometime after his demise.

Biography
"How many languages do you speak?''" "I am fluent in over six million forms of communication and can readily&mdash;" "Splendid. We have been without an interpreter since our master got angry with our last protocol droid and disintegrated him." "''Disintegrated?"

- EV-9D9 and C-3PO

A feminine, third class EV supervisor droid manufactured by MerenData, EV-9D9, also known or simply as 9D9, was originally a peaceful moisture vaporator mechanic on the planet Tatooine. However, she had a programming defect that caused her to exhibit cruelty towards other droids, a flaw many other EV units shared. She was acquired by the Hutt crime lord Jabba Desilijic Tiure, who made her chief of Cyborg Operations at his Tatooine palace, a position she was well suited for after being reprogramming in a Mos Eisley spaceport scrapyard. She was one of the few EV units to escape MerenData's mass recall. EV-9D9 converted a dank boiler room in the murky depths of the palace's dungeons into a droid "assessment" room, in actuality a grim torture chamber, where her devotee, 8D8, an 8D-series smelter droid reprogrammed for sadism, assisted her in terrorizing Jabba's droid pool into submission.

In the year 0 BBY, 261, a rogue Imperial astromech droid, was captured and brought to Jabba's Palace, where he was forced to join its droid pool. However, the droid was able to escape, making EV-9D9 furious. When the Trandoshan bounty hunter Bossk, working to retrieve the droid for the Empire, tracked it to the palace, the supervisor droid explained that 261 had escaped, claiming that "he'll soon learn some respect." Bossk later recovered the droid from a clan of Jawas and brought it back to the Empire.

After the Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker gifted Jabba R2-D2 and C-3PO in 4 ABY, shortly before the Battle of Endor, they were escorted down to EV-9D9's torture chamber so she could assign them positions in her master's droid pool. C-3PO, a protocol droid, was made Jabba's new interpreter, as his last one was disintegrated after it had angered him, and was fitted with a restraining bolt before being returned to the palace's main audience chamber, and R2-D2, an astromech droid, was forced to serve drinks aboard Jabba's sail barge, the Khetanna. However, R2-D2 was actually tasked with infiltrating the palace's droid pool so that he could assist in the rescue of Han Solo from the Hutt's clutches, a mission that ultimately resulted in Jabba's demise, after which EV-9D9 was deactivated with the rest of the palace's droid pool.

Characteristics
Originally peaceful and hardworking, EV-9D9 was corrupted by a programming flaw and some very nasty reprogramming. A malicious, sadistic, and psychotic mechanic murderer, she enjoyed tormenting and dismembering other droids, reveling in working them until they fell apart or their processors blew and employing bizarre forms of droid torture to increase motivation. EV-9D9 relished her role as taskmaster of all the palace's droids and was quickly annoyed with the antics of C-3PO, cutting him off whenever she got the answers she wanted or when he started to stray from the question at hand. When R2-D2 started acting feistily towards her, EV-9D9 assigned him to her master's sail barge to teach him respect.

A gangly bronze and silver colored mechanical with feminine programming, EV-9D9 was missing various parts, lending her a skeletal appearance. Her manipulator arms and legs were motivated by exposed pistons, and both of her hands terminated in three multi-jointed digits. She stood at 1.9 meters in height and had three yellow photoreceptors, one of which she custom-fitted to allow herself to "see" droid pain. EV-9D9 had a degraded logic center and spoke with synthesized female voice that sounded as if it had been stolen from an elderly prison matron. As she spoke, her hinged vocoder flapped up and down beneath her sharp metal chin, simulating the movement of a mouth.

Equipment
EV-9D9 sat behind an ancient, rickety computer console.

Behind the scenes
"Richard Marquand was playing EV-9D9 in that scene and was terrific. It's very easy acting with a piece of tin when it's got a voice like that coming out of it. He used to be an actor, so he knows what it feels like, all the tensions you feel being on a set with a camera pointed at you, how you need to be encouraged and praised. He's very gentle, which is nice."

- Anthony Daniels

Originally created for the 1983 film Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi, EV-9D9 first appeared in a Star Wars Legends novelization of the film written by James Kahn and released on May 12, 1983, thirteen days before the film was released in theaters on May 25. The character was identified as EV-9D9 in the novel, a name that originated in the third draft of Return of the Jedi but wasn't included in the final film. This name was established to be canon by Ultimate Star Wars, a reference book written by Patricia Barr, Adam Bray, Daniel Wallace, and Ryder Windham and released on April 28, 2015.

EV-9D9 appeared as early as the rough draft of the Revenge of the Jedi script, where she was known as U-8D8. In the revised second draft, she was renamed EV-8D8. In the third draft, she received her final name and her smelter droid assistant instead inherited the name 8D8. She was portrayed using a marionette created by Bill Hargreaves and Steve Short, which was based on Ralph McQuarrie concept art of an assassin droid, and was voiced on set by director Richard Marquand, whose voice was later redubbed during post-production. At one point in the production of Return of the Jedi, EV-9D9 was to be able to walk, though it was later decided that she would sit after the special effects department failed to make it work by George Lucas' deadline. An interactive gallery of EV-9D9's marionette was included on Bonus Disc 2 of Star Wars: The Complete Saga, a Blu-ray set that comprised the first six main Star Wars films along with three additional discs of bonus material that was released on September 12, 2011. The marionette was once stored in the Lucasfilm Archives, but is now on display as part of Star Wars Identities: The Exhibition.

Appearances

 * Bounty Hunt
 * Star Wars: The Original Trilogy – A Graphic Novel
 * Star Wars Battlefront
 * Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi
 * Return of the Jedi: Beware the Power of the Dark Side!
 * Star Wars: Return of the Jedi