Luke Skywalker


 * Luke Skywalker vs The Dark Troopers.jpg"I am a Jedi, like my father before me."
 * ―Luke Skywalker

Birth

Luke Skywalker was born in 19 BBY on the asteroid field of Polis Massa two days after the proclamation of the Galactic Empire. He and his twin sister, Leia, who was born shortly after him, were the children of Galactic Republic Senator Padmé Amidala, who died shortly after labor, and Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker, who had recently fallen to the dark side of the Force. To protect the children from the Empire and Anakin, the now-Sith Lord Darth Vader, Obi-Wan Kenobi personally sent the infant Luke to live with Anakin's stepbrother Owen Lars and his wife Beru on the planet Tatooine, while Senator Bail Organa agreed to adopt Leia together with his wife, the queen of Alderaan.

First years on the farm

Skywalker spent his youth on the Lars' moisture farm, where his uncle unsuccessfully tried to discourage his adventurous tendencies, telling him that his father had been "a navigator on a spice freighter" during the Clone Wars. His aunt, Beru, would read him storybooks; one day, when his uncle had business in Mos Eisley, she took Skywalker to Anchorhead to use the HoloNet connections there and show him images of forests, rivers, and oceans.

By the age of three in 16 BBY, Luke had found pleasure playing with a model spaceship built especially for him. Luke did not know that Kenobi had actually built it and that Kenobi had been leaving several of them at his grandmother Shmi's sandblasted tombstone for his aunt to find. One morning, as Luke played with his toy, a group of marauders attacked the farm. Obi-Wan Kenobi, who had been watching Luke from afar, sprang into action, cutting down several Gamorreans before coming to the realization that he was badly outnumbered. Just as he was about to be dealt a possibly killing blow by one of the gang, Luke threw the toy starfighter he had been playing with, managing to distract the Gammorean long enough for Kenobi to separate his feet from his ankles. The battle then raged further, slowly turning in the favor of the defenders which included uncle Owen, who managed to gun down several of the invaders with a blaster. Luke cried out after noticing that one of the marauders, a Devaronian, had snuck up behind Owen, ready to knock him out. Kenobi then threw his lightsaber cutting the last marauder in half. As Luke cheered, Owen threw a punch which knocked Kenobi to the ground. Owen then ushered Luke back before chastising Kenobi for his involvement, pointing out the fact that Luke's brief show of bravery had potential ramifications for the boy's future.

Taking on Jabba’s thugs

At the age of eight, during the Great Drought in 11 BBY, henchmen for the crime lord Jabba the Hutt collected a "water tax" on their master's behalf. Despite the damage it caused moisture farmers, Skywalker naïvely stood up to the thugs at night, trying to take back the water they had stolen from the farmers. Kenobi, who sensed the danger his protégé was in, blew their vehicle's lights with the Force to hide his identity, and proceeded to disable all of Jabba's henchmen. One of them became startled and pushed Skywalker to the ground, causing him to hit his head and pass out. Once Kenobi handled the thugs, he carried Skywalker to the Lars' homestead where he was found asleep, unaware of his savior's identity, by his aunt in the morning.

Saving Uncle Owen

Some time after grounding Luke from flying his skyhopper, Owen Lars attempted to rebuild his relationship with his nephew by looking to help him fix it. However, before he could, he was captured by the Wookiee bounty hunter Black Krrsantan and tortured. Meanwhile, Luke was running away from home for not the first time. However, he sensed something was wrong and rushed to his homestead. When he arrived, he found many droids destroyed and his aunt Beru rattled, telling him of the attack. She ordered her nephew to lock himself in the homestead's maintenance bay, where he found his disabled skyhopper. He proceeded to fix it and make his way to Krrsantan and Owen. As he flew there, the Wookiee was engaged by Obi-Wan Kenobi. During this battle, Owen was thrown off a cliff. Before he could hit the bottom, Luke, in his skyhopper, managed to catch him and escape. Meanwhile, Kenobi defeated Krrsantan. Afterwards, Skywalker was allowed to fly his skyhopper once again.

Other adventures

Eventually, Skywalker became an adventure-seeking youth who demonstrated his father's natural piloting skills, as well as a strong desire to leave Tatooine. At one point in his boyhood, Skywalker was climbing in a canyon, but, when he grabbed the top, the rock broke off. Skywalker fell into a cave, where he was seen by a group of womp rats and a krayt dragon, although he managed to escape the creatures. Years later, C-3PO referenced this story to several visitors. When Skywalker was 12 years old in 7 BBY, he and his friend, Windy went off on their own through the Tatooine desert and wandered away from the moisture farms riding a dewback. The two encountered a sandstorm during their time outside and both lost consciousness. A krayt dragon was nearby when Skywalker woke up, but they were saved by Kenobi, meeting him for the first time after his adoption to the Lars family. Skywalker asked him who he was, and Kenobi revealed that his name was Ben Kenobi and an old friend of his father. Soon after, Skywalker exhausted and with Windy, he returned safely to their homes, carried on a dewback.

As more of Skywalker's friends left the planet to follow their dreams, he became increasingly frustrated that his uncle would not allow him to do the same, claiming that he still needed help with the farm. In truth, Owen was trying to prevent Skywalker from following in his father's footsteps. In 2 BBY Skywalker was helping at his foster parent's moisture farm when Beru called him inside. As Skywalker ran back to the house, he was watched in the distance by Obi-Wan Kenobi, who was riding a dewback. Kenobi had just defeated and killed the former Sith apprentice Maul, who had a vendetta against Kenobi after being bisected at the torso during the Invasion of Naboo thirty years earlier. In his final moments, Maul asked Kenobi if he was guarding Skywalker. Kenobi affirmed that he believed Luke was the Chosen One before Maul passed away.

When not helping his uncle, Skywalker would occasionally go bulls-eye womp rats, or go racing through the dangerous Beggar's Canyon in his T-16 Skyhopper by the age of thirteen. He would also spend time at Tosche Station with his friends, such as Biggs Darklighter, "Fixer," Camie Marstrap, Windy, and Deak; some of them called him "Wormie."

The Galactic Civil War

In 0 BBY, the purchase of two droids—R2-D2 and C-3PO—by Skywalker's step-uncle changed the young farm boy's life forever. Obtaining the droids from a band of Jawas to help with various tasks around the homestead, neither of them were aware that the droids had narrowly escaped from the Galactic Empire, and that R2-D2 contained a set of plans for the Empire's dreaded Death Star superweapon.

While cleaning the two new droids back at the homestead, Skywalker learned that they had been involved with the Rebel Alliance, and witnessed part of a desperate message from Princess Leia Organa requesting help from someone named "Obi-Wan Kenobi," whom R2-D2 claimed that he once belonged to. Skywalker soon found himself in the company of Kenobi after being attacked by a group of Sand People out in the Jundland Wastes. After traveling back to the Jedi's home, Kenobi soon revealed to Skywalker that he had once been a Jedi Knight who served in the Clone Wars with Skywalker's father. He went on to inform Skywalker that his father was not a spice freighter navigator like his uncle had always told him, but a Jedi Knight struck down by Darth Vader. Skywalker was also given his father's lightsaber by Kenobi, allowing the blade to be ignited for the first time in years. After he showed Princess Leia's message in its entirety to Kenobi, the old Jedi Master requested Skywalker's help to see the mission through, and offered to show him the ways of the Force. Skywalker initially refused to get involved, as he believed his duties at home were more important, but he offered to take Kenobi to Anchorhead.

On their way to Anchorhead, Skywalker and Kenobi came upon a group of slaughtered Jawas—the same ones who sold the droids to his uncle. Skywalker deduced from learning that Imperial stormtroopers were responsible that they might have looked into the sales records of the droids, and rushed home in the hopes of saving his step-aunt and step-uncle. Upon returning home, Skywalker discovered that he was too late: his step-aunt and step-uncle had been murdered by the Empire. With the people who raised him dead, he decided to accompany Kenobi to Alderaan to deliver the plans back to the Alliance and learn the ways of the Jedi.

On their way to Mos Eisley, Kenobi began training him and gave Skywalker his first lesson, during which he learned the basics of Jedi meditation. They would later reach Chalmun's Spaceport Cantina, where Kenobi believed that they could find a pilot that could get them to Alderaan. Inside the cantina, Skywalker nearly had a fatal run-in with the criminals Ponda Baba and Dr. Evazan, but trouble was avoided when Kenobi sliced off Baba's arm with his lightsaber in defense of Skywalker.

The two were eventually able to find a pilot that could take them to Alderaan in the form of Han Solo, a Corellian smuggler, and his co-pilot Chewbacca. Solo's initial rate was ten thousand credits all paid in advance, which Skywalker thought was too expensive. Ultimately, they were able to compromise when Kenobi offered to pay two thousand credits up front and an additional fifteen thousand when they got to Alderaan, for a total of seventeen thousand credits, which convinced Solo to take them, with Skywalker selling his speeder to pay for the two thousand up front.

The Death Star rescue

After escaping stormtroopers on Solo's ship, the Millennium Falcon, Kenobi began Skywalker's instruction in the ways of the Force, using a training remote to instruct him in basic lightsaber combat, much to the derision of Solo, who dismissed it as a "hokey religion." Wearing a helmet that completely covered his eyes for part of the lesson, Kenobi encouraged him to reach out with the Force to combat the remote. Despite his vision being totally impaired, Skywalker was able to successfully deflect a pair of blaster bolts from the remote, claiming that he could "almost see" the remote through the Force.

The lesson, however, was soon interrupted by their arrival in the Alderaan system and their discovery of the planet's destruction. They then spotted a patrolling TIE fighter and, upon following it, found that it was approaching what appeared to be a small moon, which turned out to be the Death Star. Caught by the Death Star's tractor beam, they were brought aboard the massive space station.

Once on board, Luke and Han knocked two stormtroopers out and stole their armor, whereas Kenobi set out to deactivate the tractor beam. However, when R2-D2 discovered that Leia Organa was being held captive on the station, Skywalker insisted on rescuing her. Though Solo was reluctant to go marching into the detention block, Skywalker convinced him to go along with the rescue by claiming that he'd get a significant reward for doing so.

Still using their stormtrooper guises, Skywalker and Solo convinced Chewbacca to pose as a prisoner and escorted him to Detention Block AA-23 (where Organa was being held.) They were able to rescue Organa, but their cover was blown and they had to jump into the garbage compactor in order to escape the pursuing Imperial forces. Though Skywalker and Organa were separated from Solo and Chewbacca, they were able to reunite with their companions, and the droids, in the hangar bay.

Eventually, the group escaped the Death Star, but only after Kenobi sacrificed himself in a duel with Darth Vader. Angry and confused, Organa offered some comfort for his grief. Despite the fact that they had escaped from the Death Star, a pursing TIE fighter patrol was on the verge of catching up to them, so at Solo's request, Skywalker manned one of the Millennium Falcon 's quad laser cannons to eliminate the enemy fighters, with Skywalker managing to destroy two of them. Once the patrol was eliminated, they traveled to the hidden rebel base on Yavin 4, unaware that the Death Star was tracking them.

The Battle of Yavin

Upon their arrival at the Yavin base, they met with Commander Willard and Organa introduced him to Skywalker so that he could join the Rebel Alliance as a pilot. Skywalker then separated and met Wedge Antilles, who oversaw his flight simulation test. Lasting no more than 30 seconds, the more experienced pilot advised Skywalker to listen to his explanations, and encouraged him not to give up. In his second try, Skywalker used what he had learned from Antilles, and managed to surpass the highest score, that of Antilles's, prompting Willard to accept him without objection. He joined Red Group with the designation of Red Five, which had previously belonged to a cadet named Pedrin Gaul, who had perished during the Battle of Scarif several days earlier.

After the briefing for their plan of attack against the incoming Death Star, Skywalker prepared himself for the attack, when he saw Solo loading his payment onto the Falcon for rescuing Organa and prepared to leave the group. Skywalker attempted to persuade him to stay and help them against the Empire, but Solo refused, claiming that the attack on the Death Star was suicide rather than bravery, deeply disappointing him. After bidding farewell to Organa as well, Skywalker was about to board his T-65B X-wing starfighter, when he encountered his old friend Biggs Darklighter, the two about to be flying as wingmen in the upcoming battle. In a brief conversation, Darklighter promised Luke that the two would catch up on each other's stories when they got back. Skywalker was also approached by Garven Dreis, the commander of Red Squadron, who asked him if he was sure he could handle the X-wing, to which Darklighter vouched for his friend, calling him the "best bush pilot in the Outer Rim Territories." Skywalker was assigned command of fourth flight for the battle.

As the Battle of Yavin got underway and Skywalker and his fellow squadmates launched into space, Skywalker was guided by the spirit of Obi-Wan Kenobi. He participated in Red Squadron's initial assault on the Death Star's outer defenses, primarily focusing on disabling the station's numerous turbolaser batteries and fighting off TIE fighters when they were deployed against the Rebel fighters. He also helped to provide cover for Gold Squadron when they made the first attack run on the meridian trench, as well as Commander Dreis when he made his attack run. Eventually, Darth Vader himself joined the fray in a TIE Advanced x1 and succeeded in thwarting the first two attack runs. Just before he was shot down by the Sith Lord, Commander Dreis instructed Skywalker to lead a third and final run on the trench with Darklighter and Antilles.

Skywalker took charge of the last attempt on the thermal exhaust port as instructed, but Vader and his two escort fighters soon caught up to them. Antilles was forced to withdraw after his starfighter suffered damage, and Darklighter was eventually shot down as well. Unable to grieve for his fallen friend, Skywalker tried to focus on his target. He was once again contacted by the spirit to Kenobi, who urged him to let the Force guide him. This prompted Skywalker to disable his starfighter's targeting computer, much to the confusion of the Rebel leaders continuing to monitor the battle from the surface of Yavin 4.

Just as Skywalker reached the end of the trench, it appeared as though Vader would shoot him down like he had the other pilots, but before he could, Han Solo and Chewbacca showed up in the Millennium Falcon, destroying Vader's two escorts and causing Vader's TIE Advanced to spiral out of control away from the trench. At Solo's urging, Skywalker took a single shot and fired two proton torpedos, using the Force to guide them to their target, which resulted in the destruction of the Death Star. For this action he, Chewbacca, and Han Solo were awarded the Medal of Bravery the next morning.

Just as the ceremony ended, Skywalker told Organa to allow herself some time to grieve for the loss of her family and homeworld. Afterwards, General Jan Dodonna sent him and Antilles, the only other survivor of Red Group, in their X-wings to retrieve the wayward princess and bring her to the Great Temple. Her shuttle's pilot, Evaan Verlaine, however, managed to outsmart them and make the jump to hyperspace with course to Naboo, with R2-D2 accompanying the two women. They would later reunite after she had successfully accomplished her mission. Soon after, Skywalker became an officer in the Alliance and was given the rank of Lieutenant and was regularly assigned numerous independent missions.