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Sandcrawler History Gallery
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Growing up on Tatooine, Anakin Skywalker learned the ways of Jawas and came to respect their knowledge of the desert planet. When his mother Shmi was taken captive by Tusken Raiders, Anakin sought out the Jawa tribes, meeting in front of their sandcrawlers. The Jawas told him where Shmi might be being held.
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A generation later, C-3PO and R2-D2 were marooned on Tatooine. The two split up, and Jawas ambushed Artoo in a lonely canyon, overloading his circuits with a shot from an ion blaster. They then carried the inert droid to a waiting sandcrawler.
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A magnetic tube descended from the sandcrawler’s belly, sucking Artoo up inside the vehicle. The Jawas then boarded their rolling fortress and headed off into the night.
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When Artoo’s systems restarted, he found himself inside a chamber filled with droids in various condition, surrounded by miscellaneous junk scavenged from the desert. Among the droids inside the vehicle’s belly was his friend C-3PO.
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The Jawa sandcrawler stopped at the farm owned by Owen and Beru Lars, where the Jawas herded the droids in saleable condition out of the sandcrawler for inspection by Owen and his nephew, Luke Skywalker.
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Owen agreed to buy C-3PO, but passed on R2-D2, selecting an astromech called R5-D4 instead. As Luke led R5-D4 away from the sandcrawler, the unfortunate droid blew his motivator.
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After a brief argument, the Jawas agreed to a swap of astromechs: R2-D2 became Owen’s property, while R5-D4 went back into the sandcrawler.
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The Jawas had no idea that R2-D2 was carrying data vital to the Empire, or that stormtroopers were scouring the desert searching for the lost astromech. The troopers tracked the droids to the sandcrawler, destroying it and slaughtering the Jawas inside. When Luke discovered the burnt-out vehicle, he realized his aunt and uncle were in terrible danger.
Sandcrawler History Gallery
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