User:Junta Chan/sandbox

"She was a student of Sith alchemy; it was said she learned the secrets of mechu-deru, the ability to transform the flesh of living beings into metal and machinery."

- Hetton, regarding Belia Darzu, a practitioner of mechu-deru

Mechu-deru

Description
Mechu-deru was a Force technique that allowed the user to manipulate mechanical systems. The nature of this ability contradicted the teachings of the Jedi, many of whom believed that the Force could only be harnessed through the midi-chlorians of living cells not possessed by machines.

Applications
"She used this power to create an army of technobeasts: organic-droid hybrids bound to her will."

- Hetton on Belia Darzu, a Sith Lord who practised mechu-deru

The application of mechu-deru allowed the user to instinctively comprehend the inner workings of machinery and circuitry. Through mechu-deru, technology could be upgraded to suit a purpose beyond its original intended role. Users were bestowed the ability to convert droids into extensions of their will, overwhelming the internal circuitry of the machines. The droids themselves could also be granted the ability to sense the power of the Force. In addition, mechu-deru was used to combine both the inanimate and the living, allowing the creation of part machine, part organic hybrids known as technobeasts. Using mechu-deru, it was also possible to imbue the technobeasts with the dark side of the Force, binding them to the will of their creator. The technique allowed the applicator to rebuild and replace parts of their own body with cybernetics.

Something
"Maggot of metal, rust, and rot. Sith life draws breath, old life does not."

- Incantation of mechu-deru vitae, a dark side variant of mechu-deru

Thousands of years before the Great Sith War, followers of the Sith discovered a way to manipulate mechanical structures through the power of the Force, devising a technique known as mechu-deru. Only a small number of Sith actually practised this technique, causing its secrets to fade into obscurity. Compared to the Sith, members of the Jedi Order were less willing to accept the idea of a relationship between technology and the Force. Unwilling to fall under the same influence as the Sith Lords, the Jedi diverted their attention away from mechu-deru and the study of droid technology. Despite this, certain members of the Order would still practise the technique of mechu-deru, specifically Jedi Sentinels operating as tech experts.

During a subset of the New Sith Wars called the Sictis Wars, a Dark Lord of the Sith known as Belia Darzu researched mechu-deru alongside the dark side art of Sith alchemy. In doing so, Lord Darzu created a technovirus capable of transforming living organisms into mutated machine-organic hybrids called technobeasts. The technique used by Darzu to produce these Sithspawn creatures was called mechu-deru vitae, a dark side variant of mechu-deru. Using mechu-deru, Darzu imbued the creatures with the dark side, binding an army of them to her will. During her reign, the Dark Lord recorded her knowledge of mechu-deru inside a Sith holocron. The creation of Darzu's technobeasts ended when she was assassinated by the Mecrosa Order, after which her secrets were thought to have been lost.

The discipline of mechu-deru was later practised by the Sith Lord known as Darth Maul. With his knowledge, Maul modified a protocol droid designated C-3PX, transforming it into an assassination droid. In addition, the Sith Lord recreated and utilized the DRK-1 Dark Eye, a probe droid with the capacity—granted through mechu-deru—to track Force-sensitive individuals.

Something
"Flesh will be deconstructed into fuel. Machine will be reconstructed into art. Art will transform the galaxy!"

- Cronal



Centuries after the New Sith Wars, a number of Sith scrolls containing the knowledge of Belia Darzu entered the possession of Cronal, a dark side practitioner who served the Galactic Empire. Intending to use the scrolls for his own purposes, Cronal practised mechu-deru during his tenure as the Emperor's Hand, a personal agent of the Galactic Emperor Palpatine. Using his knowledge, Cronal upgraded the thaissen crystals that were installed into the Force detecting devices used by Imperial Jedi hunters. This allowed the devices to determine the Force-sensitivity and alignment of a specific target.

In the aftermath of Cronal's failed campaign against the New Republic on the planet Mindor, the Dark Side Adept was forced to use mechu-deru simply to keep himself alive. To this end, the majority of Cronal's body was replaced by via mechu-deru with cybernetics, leaving his head and neck as the only remaining organic parts. Around this time, Cronal spent years experimenting with both mechu-deru and Sith alchemy on the planet Trailia, blending them to form his own method of creation dubbed the Stygian Art. In doing so, Cronal transformed the native inhabitants into technobeasts, eventually travelling away with his creations to the world of Coruscant.

During his time on Coruscant, Cronal partook in the cybernetic transformation of Irek Ismaren, the son of another Emperor's Hand known as Roganda Ismaren. This transformation—conducted by scientist Nasdra Magrody at the behest of Roganda herself —ultimately granted Irek an accelerated mastery of mechu-deru by means of a cybernetic brain transplant. As a key part of Roganda's plot to revitalize the Galactic Empire, Irek used his implant in an attempt to control the Eye of Palpatine, a dreadnaught constructed at the behest of Emperor Palpatine himself. This attempt ultimately failed, however, after which Roganda would somehow acquire a number of scrolls detailing the art of mechu-deru. With the combination of Roganda's newly-gained knowledge and Irek's mechu-deru abilities, the pair had the potential to create and unleash a horde of part machine, part organic mutants upon the galaxy.

When the cyborg Irek grew unstable and entered a rampage, Cronal narrowly ensured his survival by sacrificing the Trailian technobeasts and plunging his lightsaber into Irek's head. Under the new identity of "Perek", Cronal later resided on the industrial planet known as Andooweel. Basing his activities in an abandoned droid depot, the Dark Side Adept was pursued by the Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker. During a previous encounter with the reborn Emperor Palpatine, Skywalker's cybernetic hand had been replaced with a new one, of which was polluted through mechu-deru. In his encounter with Skywalker, Cronal infected the circuitry of the Jedi Knight's hand with technobeast nanodroids, hoping to possess him. This attempt backfired, however, when Skywalker's robotic hand turned against Cronal and strangled the Dark Side Adept to death.

Behind the scenes
Mechu-deru was first depicted—albeit as an unidentified Force ability at the time—by Barbara Hambly in Children of the Jedi, a novel published in 1995 by Bantam Spectra. In the following year, the ability was once again mentioned unnamed in a roleplaying supplement entitled Tales of the Jedi Companion. These two depictions were later retconned as mechu-deru by Abel G. Peña. The ability itself was first identified by its name in "The Lost Art", an adventure seed authored by Peña as part of the 2001 article known as The Emperor's Pawns. The name of mechu-deru was taken from The Essential Guide to Episode I, a cancelled addition to the Essential Guide series. In 2003, mechu-deru was depicted unnamed in Collapsing New Empires, a comic featured in the nineteenth issue of the Star Wars Tales series. This appearance was retconned in the third and final part of the StarWars.com blog series named The Imperial Warlords: Despoilers of an Empire, detailing the exploits of a mechu-deru practitioner named Cronal.

Appearances

 * Children of the Jedi
 * Darth Bane: Rule of Two
 * Darth Plagueis