Wookieepedia:Featured article queue/March 20, 2010

Imperial Sentinels were armored-and-cloaked warriors assigned to serve Emperor Palpatine's Dark Side Adepts. Cloned in hidden facilities on the secret Imperial throne world of Byss, these mute giants were mutated by Dark Side Adepts and injected with chemicals that suppressed their higher brain functions, causing them to become completely subservient. For the duration of their natural existence, Sentinels were slaves to their assigned Adept and carried out their master's bidding without question. They accompanied the Adepts on missions off-world, typically acting as bodyguards.

Mainly remaining on Byss to guard the the Emperor's Citadel, Sentinels had only been seen a handful of times in the short history of the Empire. This led to a great deal of speculation among the upper echelons of the Empire as to what exactly these armored behemoths were. In 10 ABY Luke Skywalker, after defecting to the Empire, was known to have bred at least two of his own Sentinels. After a bold attempt to rescue Skywalker from Byss, Princess Leia Organa Solo&mdash;Skywalker's sister and prominent New Republic Council member&mdash;and Han Solo&mdash;Leia's husband and pilot of the Millennium Falcon&mdash;were escorted by Skywalker's Sentinels to Palpatine's clone laboratories on Byss. There they confronted both Skywalker and Palpatine himself. One year later, most of the Sentinels and their cloning facilities were obliterated with the destruction of Byss and the final death of Palpatine.