10 Minor Star Wars Characters Whose Stories Must Be Told
6. The Chroon-Tan B-Machine
Revenge of the Sith gave cinema the Chroon-Tan B-Machine, a droid created specifically for the task of acting as a midwife. Hers is a story that teaches about the lot of the average droid, how their perceptions are warped by the role they play, and the effect on their lives of their repetitive servitude.
The B-Machine’s only interactions with humans are in the moments of childbirth. She sees human beings either as locked permanently in extremes of pain and emotion, or as vulnerable, helpless, mewling creatures incapable of surviving alone. Her inner mythology is based on these strange, agonised creatures and the gooey parasites that cause them such pain and joy.
Humankind must know the Chroon-Tan B-Machine's story because of the mirror it holds up to the species. Star Wars' humans take droids for granted, but within each of them is a whole world made up of their limited human interactions. To this sprog-extracting heroine, human beings are defined by their suffering, their weakness, and their endless creation of flawed and incomplete clones of themselves. And who can say she is wrong?