Darth Vader

Characteristics

Eyes: Blue (yellow and red in Dark Side) 
Hair: None (formerly dark blond)
Height: 6'1" (185 cm) as Anakin, 6'8" (202 cm) as Darth Vader
Weight: 185 lbs (84 kg) as Anakin, 300 lbs (136 kg) as Darth Vader

Origin

Anakin Skywalker was a young slave boy who lived on the desert planet Tatooine. He lived with his mother Shmi and worked as a slave for a Toydarian junk dealer named Watto. Anakin was an exceptional mechanic, managing to build a protoccol droid C-3PO. He was also skilled in piloting. All in all, it was a rather normal life for a slave.

But since that changed, the Universe has trembled in terror of its eventual would-be destroyer.

Anakin's world was shaken up when the Jedi Master  Qui-Gon Jinn, Padme Amidala, R2-D2, and Jar Jar Binks came to Tatooine. Master Jinn immediately recognized something massive in Anakin. Deeply connected to the Force and with a high midi-chlorian count, he had the potential to become the strongest Jedi Knight ever. As it turned out, the party was stranded on the planet because their hyperdrive broke down. While searching they went to a repair shop and met Anakin. Anakin agreed to help them by winning a podrace in the Boonta Eve Classic. Qui-Gon Jinn made a bet for waddo, That if Anakin wins he would be free. Waddo accepted the bet. After winning the race largely due to his Force skills, Anakin was freed and left to train and become a Jedi. While aboard the ship, he developed a fascination with Padme and gave her a Japor snippet to remember him by. He was then brought before the Jedi Council who, despite his high midi-chlorian count, denied the request because he was too old and emotionally attached. Meanwhile, the evil Darth Sidious had sent his apprentice  Darth Maul after the two Jedi Knights. They went to Coruscant, narrowly escaping Maul at each turn. When the time came to strike at the Trade Federation, Anakin took refuge in a starfighter cockpit and was accidentally whisked into the space battle with Artoo. He managed to accomplish what the other Naboo pilots could not; destroy the Droid Control Ship with well-placed proton torpedoes. Unfortunately, Qui-Gon was killed in a duel with Darth Maul. After Obi-Wan killed the Sith Lord, he was made a fully-fledged Jedi Knight and was granted permission from the Council to train the boy. 

Although Obi-Wan trained him well, Anakin had a natural violence within him. He was rash and unthinking--and he feared losing the ones he loved very much. However, he proved to be a great Jedi Knight, and speculation arose that he might be The Chosen One--the one who would destroy the Sith Peerage once and for all. As a Padawan, he had a mission to protect Senator Padme Amidala from an attempt on her life by the Confederacy of Independent Systems. During this, he brooded over his mother Shmi and wanted her, so he traveled to Tatooine to see her. But when he got there, he realized that Tusken Raiders had tortured murdered her. Anakin slaughtered an entire tribe of Tuskens, even the women and children of the tribe, in a blind rage; he was turning to the Dark Side. It was also during this time that he had started a romance with Padme. When Obi-Wan was captured on Geonosis, Anakin and Padme set out to rescue him. However, they were captured along with Obi-Wan and the three were sentenced to death. They managed to hold their own until Mace Windu and his Jedi strike force came and saved them, along with clone troopers. When Anakin and Obi-Wan pursued the Separatist leader Count Dooku, Padme fell and the two Jedi had an brief argument. Anakin and Obi-Wan soon caught up with the count, but Anakin impatiently charged and was blasted with Dooku's Force lightning. After Obi-Wan was wounded in a fight, Anakin recovered and saved his Master from Dooku's attack. The Padawan then fought off the count with two lightsabers before having his right arm severed to Dooku's blade. The two would have died if it had not been for Yoda's intervention. After that skirmish, he married Padme in a secret marriage ceremony with C-3PO and R2-D2 as his only witnesses. During his Padawan years, Anakin would participate in numerous Clone War battles. He would encounter Dark Jedi Asajj Ventress whom he defeated on the temples of Yavin IV. It is during this Clone Wars period that he would be knighted, albeit in a controversial decision. After this, he would have a second encounter with Asajj Ventress and persevere, but not before receiving facial scars in the duel. He would then temporarily be assigned Ahsoka Tano as his new Padawan.

Anakin and Obi-Wan would then be assigned a crucial mission; to save Chancellor Palpatine who had been kidnapped by General Grievous. The Jedi stormed the Separatist flagship Invisible Hand and found the Chancellor there guarded by Count Dooku. The Jedi engaged Dooku in combat and the count managed to render Obi-Wan unconcious. Anakin fought Dooku alone and beat away until he cut off the count's hands. Palpatine then goaded Anakin into beheading Dooku. The Jedi then were captured by General Grievous before resuming attack. But Grievous had escaped and Anakin managed to pilot the ship to Coruscant. Anakin then met Padme who then told him she got pregnant. However, Anakin feared losing her as he had lost his mother. "Fear leads to anger; anger to hate; hate to suffering," said  Yoda who recognized that the boy might be on the path to the Dark Side. He started to distrust those around him, and he loathed the  Jedi Order when he felt they wronged him because even though he got a seat on the Jedi Council, he was not granted the title Jedi Master: a title he needed to access restricted Jedi holocrons to save Padme. He also was taken in by Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, who was secretly a Sith Lord. Palpatine gained Anakin's trust and loyalty, only to have Anakin learn that he was the Sith Lord Darth Sidious. Palpatine told him, however, that with Sith powers, he could become immortal and stop other people from dying. Anakin reported this discovery to  Mace Windu who would lead a strike force to arrest the Chancellor, but then thought about the power promise and flew over to the Chancellor's office. Master Windu had Palpatine at bladepoint and was barraged by the Sith's Force lightning. Anakin was torn between loyalty and supposed power to save Padme, but he had made his decision and hastily severed Windu's sword arm. After Palpatine killed the Jedi Master, he assured Anakin that he was fulfilling his destiny. Anakin then pledged loyalty to the Sith and became Palpatine's new apprentice Darth Vader. The Chancellor then gave him a mission to assault the Jedi Temple in Operation: Knightfall. Vader did this without question, leading clone troopers in the raid. Many Jedi and younglings were slaughtered in the brutality. Vader's next mission was to travel to Mustafar and kill the Separatist leaders, including Nute Gunray.

It was there that Vader saw Padme's cruiser and the couple met for the last time. He thought that Obi-Wan was trying to turn his wife against him--and that Padme was plotting with Obi-Wan against him. Vader went berserk. He nearly killed Padme with a Force-choke and attacked Obi-Wan. They fought a huge battle on the lava planet, with both nearly striking death blows. In the end, Obi-Wan got the winning position, but Vader foolishly attacked anyway--and Obi-Wan severed his legs and good arm off. Vader then caught fire, and he nearly burned to death. Kenobi left sadly, for his friend and apprentice had turned to evil. Vader was saved by the Emperor who healed him and put him in a black suit of armor with robotic limbs and covered with flowing black robes and a huge black cloak. He became the Emperor's second-in-command of the Empire.

Almost twenty years passed from there.

Serving the Emperor

Darth Vader gained power beyond beyond one's wildest dreams and became the most powerful Sith ever. Vader ruled the Empire with an iron fist, using his power and evil to dominate everything beneath him. He had no rivals or real enemies--the Empire simply ruled everything. But that was before the Alliance To Restore The Republic came.

The Rebellion was trying to stop Vader and the Empire, so they engaged in vicious combat. And a young man, nineteen years of age, but with a strong connection to the Force--Luke Skywalker--emerged. Skywalker was allied with Han Solo, a Corellian pilot and smuggler who had been cashiered from the Corellia Merchant Marine, Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan (whom Luke then did not know was his own fraternal twin sister), and an aged Obi-Wan Kenobi. Luke Skywalker was the Rebel pilot to destroy Vader's base, the Death Star. Vader and Kenobi fought for one last time before this happened, though, and Vader killed Kenobi--only to have Kenobi vanish into a crumple of his own brown robes just as he was being beheaded. Before Kenobi died as a physical being, Luke heard him say, "Darth Vader...betrayed and murdered your father." Luke, not knowing that this meant Anakin Skywalker's corruption had betrayed everything he had believed in and seemingly destroyed the good man he had once been, swore revenge and promised that he would grow strong in the Force and bring down the Empire.

The Empire, led by Vader, counterattacked. Three years after the Death Star had been destroyed, the Empire destroyed the Rebel Base on Hoth VI, though many of its All-Terrain Armored Transports (AT-ATs) were destroyed in the battle. The Empire had gained strength, so as Luke traveled to Dagobah, in whose swamps Yoda now made his home, to become Yoda's apprentice and continue his training in use of the Force, Han Solo and Leia Organa traveled to Cloud City, in the Bespin system, to meet Han's old friend Lando Calrissian. However, Vader had tracked the heroes to Cloud City with the help of the Mandalorian bounty hunter Boba Fett and forced up a deal that meant that the Baron Administrator betray them, and the Dark Lord captured them. Vader, wanting to capture Skywalker, decided to test the carbonite freezing on Han Solo, who proved to have a price on his head thanks to Jabba the Hutt, and Fett took him to Jabba. Luke escaped, having reached Cloud City too late to save Han or Leia--but he and Vader engaged in a lightsaber battle. Vader's power was much more vast than Luke's, but he did not kill Luke because he wanted Luke to turn to the Dark Side and become an ally of the Empire. They fought, and Vader eventually slashed off Luke's hand at the wrist, over a balcony, causing Luke to lose the lightsaber Anakin had meant for him before becoming Vader.

Then Vader said, "Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father, did he?"

Luke screamed, "HE TOLD ME ENOUGH!" Then he added, "He told me you killed him."

But Vader replied, "No, I am your father." Then he urged Luke, one last time, "Join me, and we can rule the galaxy as father and son."

But Luke chose death over life as Vader's son, and he let go and fell. He barely survived and continued the fight against Vader and the Empire.

More than six months passed. Over that time, Luke formed a plan to free Han. The group went to Luke's former home planet of Tatooine, location of Jabba the Hutt's palace, where Han was frozen. (Lando Calrissian participated in order to win a wager against Leia Organa, who had bet that he could not redeem himself by assisting them.) They freed him and Leia succeeded in killing Jabba himself.

The Alliance had learned that the Empire was building a second, more powerful Death Star, knowledge that the Emperor had secretly allowed it to obtain. When Luke traveled to the base where Vader and the Emperor were, he revealed his acceptance of the fact that Vader had once been Anakin Skywalker, his father, and tried to draw Vader back where Kenobi had failed. But aboard the unfinished second Death Star, when Luke refused to turn even after defeating Vader in another lightsaber duel, the Emperor fired Force lightning at him, and was about to kill him as Vader watched. As Luke was was electrocuted, he moaned, "Father, please help me!"

All the while, Anakin Skywalker had been fighting that which made him Darth Vader.

Successfully overcoming what had made him Vader, Anakin seized the Emperor and threw him into the Death Star's power core. He died after killing the Emperor and saving his son, who unmasked him to find that his father had still been essentially human all the time. No matter how evil Darth Vader had been, Anakin Skywalker died a hero, his ghost was seen at the Endor celebration.

Darth Vader had an apprentice called Galen Marek (codenamed Starkiller). He was planning on over throwing the Emperor but his plans where shattered when he sacrificed himself for his son Luke Skywalker.

Powers, Abilities, and Weapons

Darth Vader had quite possibly the strongest mastery over the Force of anyone who ever lived. He could employ it for the purposes of psychokinesis and telepathy, and he could sense danger and perceive possible futures. Though his organic body was almost useless, Vader had had an extensive array of bionic prosthetic hardware cybernetically fused to it, hardware that granted him enhanced strength, speed, stamina, agility, and the like.

As his chief weapon, Vader carried a red-bladed lightsaber personalized to him. (Both Jedi Knights and Sith Lords had to construct their own lightsabers by hand.) He was a master with it, easily fighting the best lightsaber users ever. He could also employ special Force moves, such as Force Choking, but he could not fire, or resist the impact of, Force Lightning because of his cyborg body. Near the end, his mastery over the Force was nearly limitless--he easily deflected a series of blaster bolts that Han Solo fired at him without sustaining any damage to his armor or his cyborg body.

In his prime, Darth Vader never even came close to being successfully challenged as a lightsaber duelist and all-around combatant. He personified the tyranny of the Sith Empire, which ruled the Andromeda Galaxy. At the time he encountered Luke Skywalker for the first time(even though he apparently did not then recognize Luke as the son of the Anakin Skywalker he had once been), he could even destroy entire planets using a massive laser cannon mounted on the Death Star.

Appearances In Games

Video game appearances

Vader finds Galen as a boy.

Loyalty from Starkiller