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Sentients, I present to you, our Secret Masters...The Gonk Droids!
It all hinges on the most crucial scene in Star Wars. The purchase of the droids on Tattoine.
As we all know, the Purchase of the Droids is where Luke meets C-3PO and R2-D2, who have the plans for the Death Star. This triggers Luke's meeting with Obi-Wan, and a Hero is born who saves the galaxy from the tyrannical grip of the Evil Empire.
Except it very nearly didn't happen like that at all.
Uncle Owen didn't choose to buy R2. Instead he chose another droid referred to as R5-D4. Aka, the red one. There's a brief scene, where C-3PO turns around, as if to say goodbye to R2 forever, then resigns himself to his new situation. It's their lot in life to suffer, as he moaned earlier.
Alas, R5-D4 blows its stack, Uncle Owen gives Chief Nebit grief about pushing crap upon him, and 3PO suggests that Luke take the plucky little R2 unit instead. Deal done, all is good. And that's all there was to that scene, right? A little bit of good luck that saves the universe. Or was it just good luck.
"In my experience there's no such thing as luck." Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Before I continue, let's indulge in a little 'what if' scenario. And the scenario is this. What if R5-D4 hadn't malfunctioned, and ended up with Luke at the farm, and R2 had stayed unsold with the Jawas?
Could R2 have somehow escaped the sandcrawler and made his way to the farm to get to C3PO, assuming he's want to do that at all? Let's assume he would try, if only because he would probably stand a better chance with 3PO (despite his attempt to go solo. Or, in light of what happened when he did, because of it.) Alas. He had the restraining bolt activated at the purchase. Hard to get around, even for a plucky little dustbin like R2.
So, with R2 out of the picture (not to mention the stolen Death Star plans), Luke stays on the farm. Luke doesn't chase R2 out in the desert, so he doesn't meet up with Obi-Wan Kenobi. He doesn't get his lightsaber. He isn't faced with the choice of 'following old Obi-Wan on some damn fool crusade'. What happens next is dependant on the stormtroopers once they catch up with the sandcrawler. Which they most certainly do.
Outcome 1. They find R2, and take the chance that he's the one with the plans for the Death Star. Which is correct. They take R2 back to their bosses, who find the Death Star plans, they get promoted, the Rebellion doesn't find a weakness in the Death Star, and when the Battle of Yavin takes place, Blammo! End of the Rebellion. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted. Hey, at least the prisoners in detention level AA23 get to live a life of torture for a while longer.
Outcome 2. The stormtroopers find one of the droids, but decide not to give up on the chance that the stolen plans are in 'the other one'. They trace back the sale to Uncle Owens and Aunt Beru's place, and instead of 2 smouldering, charred remains as a reminder of a friendly visit from their neighbourhood Empire troops, there are now 3. Luke joins the growing list of victims, no Jedi hero, the Jedi die with Vader, and the Sith win the Big One. End of the Rebellion, as seen above. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.
But let's assume Outcome 1 from above. Luke survives. The droids work out, and Uncle Owen keeps his promise of allowing Luke to 'go to the Academy' the next year. Luke's a decent pilot, he works out well, becomes decorated in perhaps another stab at a rebellion. Maybe he ends up as decorated, and skilled as, say Wedge Antilles. It's certainly within him, and he may feel stirrings of 'The Force' which, alas, remain untrained within him, as Obi-Wan never meets him to set him off on his heroes journey. Or even if he does, the fire's not in his belly, because the Empire didn't kill his aunt and uncle anyway. Or Ben, for that matter. (He had, after all, decided not to follow Obi-Wan anyway. It's safe to assume he would make the same choice under pretty much the same conditions.) And even if there's a subsequent attack on the Death Star, there's no Force, no exploitable weak-spot that the Rebellion has to offer their pilots, no Han Solo and the Millenium Falcon to help out in a tight spot, no Obi-Wan guiding him to 'use the Force', and even if Vader and Luke meet in combat, Vader says, 'I have you now' and blows him to smithereens because Han isn't there to distract Vader because he's still smuggling his butt off to pay back Jabba. Because 'there's no such thing as luck', and because 'he's good against a living' and all that. And there's still a Death Star. And a second, in construction around Endor. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.
So, yeah, taking that blue droid was pretty damn crucial. But was it an accident that R5 had 'a bad motivator'?
What the hell is a 'motivator' anyway? Well, according to Wookipedia, that font and bastion of Star Wars knowledge, a Motivator is "a device that was primarily used in droids to convert other forms of energy such as chemical or electrical energy into kinetic or mechanical energy."
Stop right there. Does that sound in any way familiar to you?
"Well, the Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together." Obi-Wan Kenobi.
So...if a motivator enables droids to convert energy into kinetic energy, and the Force is an energy field...does that make droids Force Users? Or Jedi? Or Sith?
According to Wookiepedia, (and Dark Horse comics), R5-D4 has a name. And a secret. R5-D4 is actually a Jedi Droid. Called Skippy. According to this Wookiepedia entry 'Skippy' used the force at the Purchase of the Droids and "...soon envisioned that, without Luke, stormtroopers would come and take R2 back to Vader, where he would be destroyed and Leia would be killed, leading to a chain reaction of horror that will include the Rebellion being destroyed." So, according to this story, R5 (Skippy. Really? Skippy?) nobly 'set off a mild explosion inside himself' then used the Force on C3PO to encourage him to tell Luke to take R2 instead.
However, according to the Official Wookiepedia entry on R5-D4 the 'bad motivator' was caused, not by using the Force to sabotage himself, but by R2-D2 sabotaging him aboard the sandcrawler, "acting under the orders of Princess Leia aboard the Tantive IV to find Obi-Wan Kenobi by any means possible, even if it involved modifying other droids, an action usually prohibited by basic droid programming laws."
Does that sound like R2 to you? Well, who can tell. R2 can be a sneaky little bastard. But that sounds like Sith talk to me. And it contradicts the self-sabotage of the 'Skippy' story. So which one is correct?
Neither of them. The sabotage was caused by another droid on board the sandcrawler. The Gonk Droid. According to the same entry, "a Power Droid on board Nebit's sandcrawler suggested that if (R5-D4) cooperated, he would eventually be sold to masters who had to be better than the Jawas." That's all a bit vague. Clearly there was another agenda at work here. And that agenda was sabotage.
But Why?
What was really at stake at the Purchase of the Droids? Well, nothing less than the fate of the galaxy for a start. But, as with so many pivotal incidents in Star Wars, there are levels of significance. And what was at stake here, for the sake of the galaxy, was Luke's Choice. Or, more specifically, Luke's Influence. What do R5-D4 and R2-D2 actually represent? A Choice between the Light Side of the Force, and the Dark Side. After all, what is the 'Dark Side' but 'a bad motivator'? This is the true meaning of 'motivator'.
The key here is the colour of the droids. And the colour of the lightsabers that would be significant indicators of their representative sides in the Balance of the Force. Basically Blue=The Light Side (Luke's Lightsaber, which was also Anakin's old Lightsaber, before he turned, Obi-Wan's Lightsaber) and Red=The Sith (Darth Vader's Lightsaber, Darth Maul's Lightsaber). And whichever droid he would choose would seal his fate. And he nearly got saddled with the Dark Side. But that act of sabotage ensured that Luke got to choose the Light Side instead. And the Gonk Droid engineered the entire situation, to make sure that there was only one outcome.
And how did the Power Droid know where they were going? Gonk Droids are everywhere. Including Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru's house.
They obviously communicated to each other. Sneaky Sneaky Gonk Droids.
But Why? Why set this pivotal situation up in the first place? What did the Gonk Droids hope to gain out of all this?
Who can tell. Gonk Droids, or Power Droids as they are more properly known as, are a mysterious thing. They're everywhere. They provide power. So they're basically walking generators. That say 'Gonk'. The Wookiepedia entry is pretty thin on info. But one can speculate.
What is the core function of a Power Droid? To provide power. So, without power, they lose their primary function, right? Well, a while before, there was one chap who had a pretty clear goal. He wanted...Unlimited Power!
So if Emperor Palpatine wanted Unlimited Power, where does that leave the Gonks? Without a purpose, that's what. And what's the best way to rectify this imbalance in power distribution, than nudge a hero capable of rectifying the imbalance in power? Power is energy, usable by both droids and force-sensitive sentients. The Gonk Droids brought down the Empire, so that they could retain their monopoly on Power! Now the Truth is Revealed!
All Hail the Secret Masters!
There you have it. The Gonk Conspiracy. Don't believe me? This is what happens when one crime lord discovered the conspiracy...
If I disappear, you will know why. And the Gonks will continue to rule in secret. Spread the word. Before the Gonks force their agenda on you. They care not for you. They exist only for Power. Stop the madness. Think of the children!
