Anakin Skywalker (SWAU)

## Anakin Skywalker

**Anakin Skywalker**, later known as **Emperor Vader**, was a Force-sensitive Human male who served the Galactic Republic as a Jedi Knight and later served the Galactic Empire as its Emperor, as well as briefly going undercover as the Sith Lord **Darth Vader** in order to get close to Darth Sidious before striking him down soon after the declaration of the new order. Born to the slave Shmi Skywalker and an unknown father in 41.9 BBY, Anakin and his mother were brought to the desert planet of Tatooine to be the slaves of Gardulla the Hutt. They soon ended up as the property of the Toydarian Watto, and Skywalker exhibited exceptional piloting skills and a reputation for being able to build and repair anything even at a young age. In 32 BBY, 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—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 became Qui-Gon's Padawan. Skywalker and Kenobi had a number of adventures during the Padawan's decade of training to become a Jedi, but as the Separatist Crisis threatened to tear the Republic apart in 22 BBY, Skywalker was reunited with 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 despite the Jedi Code's restrictions on romantic attachments.

When the Clone Wars erupted, Skywalker was granted the rank of Jedi Knight and became known to the public as the "Hero with No Fear." As the war raged on for the next three years, Skywalker took on the Togruta Ahsoka Tano as his apprentice and fought alongside his fellow Jedi in scores of battles while leading the 501st Legion. He fostered a friendship with the Supreme Chancellor, Sheev Palpatine, which put him at odds with the Jedi Council, who were wary of Palpatine's rapid acquisition of further powers during the Clone Wars. Throughout the latter years of the war, 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 in 19 BBY made him desperate to find a way to save his wife. Palpatine, who was in fact the Sith Lord Darth Sidious, tried manipulating Skywalker into becoming his apprentice with the promise of saving Padmé. Good ultimately prevailed in Anakin, but he remained under the guise of being Palpatine's apprentice, being rechristened as a the Sith Lord Darth Vader.

Although Anakin did not succumb to the dark side, he still believed the Jedi were a threat to peace in the galaxy. Once more, this notion was all but proven to him when Mace Windu and the Jedi Order overthrew Palpatine and took control of the Galactic Senate. When Palpatine denounced the Jedi as traitors in a planet-wide emergency broadcast on Coruscant, Anakin was chosen to lead Operation: Knightfall, the attack on the Jedi Temple and the eradication of the Jedi Order. Skywalker led the 501st in a march on the Jedi Temple and proceeded to slaughter any and all Jedi within it, but managed to save the younglings, who would later become the basis for the Imperial Knights.