Originally published March 28, 1997, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1219

And now, in celebration of the 20-year anniversary of Star Wars, we present the untold story (well, untold until now) of the single most important individual in the entire trilogy. The individual upon whom the whole story has hinged. And yet, his praises have gone unsung. There are no books about him, no background on him, no notice of him whatsoever in any description of the main points of Star Wars. Hearken to the following tale (a commentary on the series—which is ®, ^TM, and © Lucasfilm Ltd. and not confirmed by anyone in that organization):

A Long Time Ago… in a Galaxy Far, Far Away…

Star Wars

Chapter 3.9

Skippy the Jedi Droid

The Emperor thought he had managed to eliminate the last of the Jedi Knights. However, he was wrong.

There was one left, and his name was Obi-Wan Kenobi. Now, Obi-Wan lived on a desolate world called Tatooine and he had gone there for two reasons—for he knew that, on this apparently barren world, there were two potential Jedi Knights left. One was Luke Skywalker, son of the famed Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan’s former pupil.

The other, however, Obi-Wan did not know. He only knew that there was another Jedi on the surface of Tatooine but he could not pinpoint the mysterious knight. It was tremendously frustrating for Kenobi, for, being a master of The Force, he had thought it would be easy. But it was not. Long did he search Tatooine, through an assortment of wretched hives of scum and villainy, through nauseating conclaves of loathing and depravity, and through many other places of equally tortured syntax.

But nowhere could he find the mysterious other Jedi Knight. There were times when he felt that he was almost on top of him, but he would look around, check the crowds of alien beings all around him, and be unable—for all his powers of The Force—to locate him.

Little did he suspect that the mysterious Jedi was literally under his nose. For the one he was searching for was, as we’ve already mentioned:

Skippy the Jedi Droid

Now, Skippy was a humble R2 unit, one of the older models. And he was not entirely certain when he had become self-aware. Artificial intelligence was nothing new for droids, of course. Droids could think, feel, respond. They could quake in fear or charge forward in bravery. They could do anything that living, breathing beings could do, except, of course, send freakin’ e-mail or copy a freakin’ file. But we covered that last week, so let’s press on.

For all the talents and abilities that droids possessed, Skippy was—something more. Something different. When he tried to convey this to his peers, his fellow machines, all of the other droids used to laugh and call him names. They never let poor Skippy join in any droid-type games.

But he knew. He knew that he had something within him—some ability that was beyond anything to which most droids aspire. He did not always feel it; it came to him one day while he was simply cruising around, serving drinks for the notorious gangster Jabba the Hutt. Jabba was an angry and vicious master, and many droids who worked for him knew great punishment. Skippy, like any other droid, wanted to avoid that.

Yet it seemed as if punishment would be his the day that a passing bounty hunter banged into Skippy while Skippy was carrying a drink order to Jabba. Skippy knew that the moment that that drink hit the ground, he was likely a goner. The moment of the falling drink seemed to extend into infinity, and, in that endless moment, Skippy—reached out. Reached out with his mind, with his feelings.

And the drink, which had tipped off the little shelf in Skippy’s head—righted itself.

Instinctively, Skippy knew that this was impossible. The drink had been overturned, the center of gravity off. There was no way that the drink could conceivably have been prevented from falling.

Yet it had been.

It happened so quickly that no one else noticed. Skippy quietly served the drink to Jabba and went on about his duties.

But that night, while everyone was sleeping, he tried to move something—nothing major, just a rock. Nothing happened at first, but then slowly the rock trembled, moved, shifted, and then rose into the air ever so slightly, then higher and higher.

Skippy practiced night after night. He had no idea what was happening; he only knew that he possessed some sort of bizarre skill. He asked other droids, and they told him that the only ones capable of such tricks were Jedi Knights, who were all extinct. Skippy sought to learn all he could about the Jedi and what they were capable of doing.

He told the other droids of his self-discovery, but they sneered at him. And when they did, he would try to prove his abilities, but he was so angry over their taunting that he was unable to focus the powers of The Force. Instead, he decided to ignore their scorn, to search his feelings and learn the powers of The Force and how to manipulate it. As he did so, he came to realize that proving himself to a bunch of dumb machines was not relevant. He was meant for greater things, and their ridicule was not important.

And one night—one amazing night—Skippy escaped. With his miraculous power, he removed his restraining bolt by application of The Force. The bolt simply hurled away from him, clattering uselessly to the floor.

He rolled towards Jabba’s exit, and two massive, pig-like guards barred his way. But Skippy reached out with the power of The Force and said to them, “Beep a beep doo bop bop,” which means, “I’m not the droid you’re looking for.” The guards hesitated only a moment and then stepped aside, and Skippy rolled to freedom—freedom to seek his destiny as a Jedi droid.

There was, however, a problem which Skippy now had to face.

He was in the middle of a desert—not surprising, since all of Tatooine is a desert.

Jedi or not, droid or not, being in a desert can be intimidating and daunting. Skippy did his best. He traveled at night, looking for his destiny. By day he hid in shadows to protect himself from the twin suns of Tatooine (although, no matter how hard he tried, he could not protect himself from the fact that binary stars have such massive gravity wells between them that they simply don’t have planets, but we won’t get into that, either). He hid from the sand people from Tusken. He hid from the sand worms from Dune.

But his destiny did not seem particularly anxious to seek out poor Skippy, and in the meantime he began to wear down. He became filthy, encrusted with dirt, sand working into his innards. His power cells were draining with little hope of recharging, no matter how carefully he conserved his power. And slowly he came to realize that, even though he was a droid of destiny, it might be that he wouldn’t have the opportunity to find it.

And then, as it turned out, his destiny found him.

One day the ground rumbled beneath his treads, and he saw coming toward him the giant rolling truck of the Jawas. Under ordinary circumstances, he would have endeavored to hide, but he knew that—despite the unpleasantness of being picked up by scrap and robot dealers—he had little choice. He wasn’t going to be able to last much longer on his own.

So Skippy let the Jawas spot him, and eagerly they scrambled out and brought him onto the transport. They cleaned him up as best as they could, although what he really needed was an oil bath and a new set of bearings. And Skippy decided that he would stay aboard the transport, at least for a while. He knew that, with his mastery of The Force, he could escape any time. He did not bother to tell the other droids about his abilities, for he knew that it was a waste of time.

And then one day he met two droids.

One was another R2 unit. But this R2 unit seemed thoroughly obsessed with some sort of mission. He told Skippy that he had to deliver a message to an Obi-Wan Kenobi.

The name struck a chord within Skippy. Somehow, he knew that name was important, but he did not know why. He sensed that The Force was trying to tell him, but Skippy was sorely frustrated and was unable to comprehend. Shortly after he’d met R2, another droid showed up as well. This one was called C-3PO, and he wouldn’t shut up. He just kept yammering and yammering and it made it impossible for Skippy to meditate and learn that which The Force was still trying to communicate to him.

There was something new happening to Skippy, something different. He was having a sense of the future, images swirling in his head that he could not yet understand: a vision of a man dressed in black and of a young woman who, for some reason, had cinnamon rolls on her head. And soldiers, many of them, dressed in white armor, and sometimes they were riding on large lizard-like creatures, but other times they were just sitting on a large replica of one. It was all very hazy and confusing.

Then one day the Jawa transport ground to a halt. Skippy could tell from the hustle and bustle that the Jawas had potential customers. They rousted all the droids out onto the hot Tatooine surface.

Two people approached. They were moisture farmers; Skippy knew the type. They seemed unassuming, run of the mill, an older man and a young one.

The young man—there was something about him. Something that seemed to call out—greatness

Skippy knew instantly. This one, this blond one—The Force was strong within him. Skippy began to quiver with delight and amazement. Destiny had seen him through, after all. He was going to be the droid of a future Jedi. And he being a Jedi himself, why—they would be an unstoppable team. They could defeat the Empire, return the galaxy to peace. Between the two of them, they could cause the Jedis to rise once more to their glory.

It was the merest trick of effort to reach out and manipulate the mind of the older man, the one called Owen. Owen was busy having his ear bent by that talky 3PO unit and had just agreed to take on old blabbermouth. Skippy nudged a thought into Owen. A thought that said, “I am the droid you’re looking for.”

“And that red one,” said Owen, pointing at Skippy.

The callow youth, the Jedi-to-be, approached him and said, “C’mon, Red, let’s go.”

Skippy rolled forward, images of the future swirling about him, all apparently about to click into a clear vision.

And the blue R2 unit started rocking back and forth, calling to C-3PO. C-3PO glanced back for the briefest of moments and then kept walking. The R2 unit started to follow in frustration, and one of the Jawas ran up and shut him down using the restraining bolt.

And it was at that moment that all the images coalesced for Skippy: the future—or potential future that lay ahead—as destiny held its breath.

Skippy would go with the 3PO unit and the future Jedi. He would try to communicate with the young Jedi, but 3PO would refuse to translate “such rubbish.” He would start moving things around using the power of The Force, and his abilities would terrify his new masters—particularly Uncle Owen, who would know just what those powers intimated. He would immediately have Skippy’s memories erased, and the Jedi droid would be no more.

Meantime, the blue R2 unit would remain with the Jawas—and the armored men would come, the armored men who would ransack the Jawas, kill them all, and take the R2 unit back with them. Back to the dark man in the helmet and cape.

The dark man would then destroy the R2 unit. Then he would kill the young woman, the woman in white with the cinnamon rolls on her head. The search for the rebels would continue and, eventually, the rebels would be found. A frightening space station would fill the sky above them and blow them out of existence and, just like that, the rebellion would end. Obi-Wan Kenobi would sense their minds crying out in fear and terror, would know that the last of the rebellion had been wiped out, and—filled with despair—his mighty heart would give out and he would collapse and die, alone and forgotten in his hut.

The young, blond Jedi would never know his destiny. He would stay and rot on Tatooine, one excuse after another offered until he was staring into the sky, looking to a destiny, but as an old man who had never followed it, never became anything more than a moisture farmer.

All this, all this because Skippy the Jedi Droid had been chosen instead of the blue R2 unit. If the blue R2 unit went with the young Jedi, a very different path lay ahead for the future. A great one—which did not include Skippy.

The fate of the entire galaxy hinged on the snap decision of one brave droid.

He knew what he had to do.

Using The Force, Skippy drove it inward, like a spike, blowing out his own internal workings. He rolled to a halt and the blond Jedi-to-be, the one named Luke, stopped and looked at him in annoyance.

“Uncle Owen,” he called, “this R2 unit has a bad motivator! Look!”

Oh, the irony of that statement! Oh, the unknowable irony! For Skippy had had the most magnificent motivation of all. He was trying to save a galaxy.

With his dying strength, Skippy reached out into the circuitry of the 3PO unit. As Owen argued with the Jawas, the 3PO unit—who had been more than happy to abandon the blue R2 unit only moments before, suddenly said, “Excuse me, sir, but that R2 unit is in prime condition. A real bargain.”

Not caring overmuch, Luke called, “Uncle Owen! How about that one?”

And he pointed to the blue R2 unit.

And with that moment, with those words, that gesture—the other future fell away, dissolved like paper in water. Skippy, his circuits failing, his consciousness evaporating, saw what was to come. The excitement, the greatness, the triumph—all due to him. To his sacrifice. To the heroics of the greatest, most unsung Jedi in the history of the galaxy.

“Take this one away,” said Luke dismissively, and the Jawas came and rolled Skippy away. His last sight, before the blackness of total breakdown encompassed him, was the blue R2 unit rolling away at the side of the golden 3PO, as if he had always been there and always would be.

The Jawas didn’t have time to repair Skippy before the Stormtroopers came and incinerated them. The first, and last, of the Jedi droids died quietly in a coma, his casing blasted to pieces by a stray Stormtrooper bolt. Died alone, unknown, unmourned.

Until now.

Be kind to your droids and all your various appliances. For sentience and an understanding of the universe is a rare and precious gift. One never knows where one will find it.

But next time you’re alone and you feel something—a faint beeping in your skull or the sound or motors whirring—you may be sensing—him. One with The Force now, ever present, ever seeking out others of his kind. Others who may be in your kitchen or on your desk, or in your briefcase. Wherever machines are taken for granted, wherever sentience may exist, there will be—Skippy, the Jedi Droid.

Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., P.O. Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.