Kane Starkiller was the Jedi father of Annikin and his brother Deak. He fled to the planet Utapau after the Knights of the Sith supplanted the Jedi as bodyguards to the Galactic Emperor. His homeworld was Aquilae. When the Galactic Empire arrived at Utapau, he was forced to flee, and his son Deak was killed.
Kane asked General Skywalker to take Annikin as his padawan. He could not instruct his son in the Force because he was a a cyborg, though he had kept this a secret even from his family. Only his head and right arm were organic. He was dying because his mechanical replacements were slowly failing. He sacrifices himself in Gordon by donating the energy pack which powered his electronic heart, which the heroes needed to power the freighter and hibernation chambers required to reach the Forbidden Systems.
Behind the scenes
- Kane appears for the first time in the rough draft to the original film. In the first draft, he becomes known as Akira Valor. By the second draft, he becomes known simply as "The Starkiller" and he is the father of Luke Starkiller; he survives to the end of that version and is not a cyborg. In the following story synopsis, he is deleted and replaced by a crazy old man encountered on the road. The notion that Luke's father was a cyborg was incorporated into the story of Darth Vader.
- Kane may have inspired the name Cade Skywalker in the Star Wars Legacy comic line. A further similarity is the father-son relationship between Kol Skywalker and his son, as well as Kol's sacrifice. The presence of large numbers of Sith, and their suborning of the New Galactic Empire closely parallels events recounted in the rough and first drafts.