Mechu-deru

"A dark perversion of the Force, twisting it to make Force-dead machines glow with artificial auras. This is the horrible nature of mechanical alchemy."

- Valek Kotonn

Mechu-deru was a dark Force talent that allowed the user to imbue machines with the dark side of the Force. With this power, the user could change machines to operate far beyond their regular mechanical limits, or to operate far more organically and naturally than their designs might initially allow. This talent was a rare one, developed over many millennia, in a process spanning some 20,000 years before the final form recognised as mechu-deru, with earlier forms being seen in the dark side technology of the and the Force-imbued elite war robots used by.

Because it was a skill grounded in alchemy and mystique, and was a talent that took time to put to best use, mechu-deru was never common, even amongst the Sith. Even amongst those who knew of it the skill was shunned by most, given that droids and machines were generally viewed as inferior to the power of the Force and were to be ignored. However, there have been a handful of proficient users of the skill in the recorded history of the Galaxy. Such users included, who modified a protocol droid into an assassin as well as improving a handful of probe droids, and , who used mecha-deru to create a techno-virus that would turn organic creatures into deadly Technobeasts. However, the most skilled user, and one of the driving forces behind the creation of mechu-deru, was Amaranth, who utilised it extensively to heavily modify the various droid bodies it used over seveal millennia.

History
As far back as 30,000 BBY knowledge existed as to the ability to imbue machines with the dark side of the Force, utilised extensively by the to create their dark technologies and control their. Though the exact mechanics of this Rakatan technology is lost to the Galaxy at large, it is known that the Builders used this technology to create the first recorded instances of the hyperdrive, which utilised the dark side of the Force to locate planets rich in the Force and transport the Builders to these planets. Other types of Rakatan technology that utilised this early meshing of the Force and machine were mental prisons, advanced Star Maps, and most significantly, the, a behemoth space station that was fuelled by a nearby star and the dark side of the Force. This immense device devoured the dark side to create its endless streams of machines and devices for the Infinite Empire, but soon enough the dark influence of the space station developed a basic sort of semi-sentience, and began to twist and corrupt the Builders who worked within in. Soon enough, those who worked and lived in the Star Forge fell and became part of its devious nature. This pinnacle of dark side technology resulted in the eventual destruction of the Infinite Empire, and with the erasure of the Infinite Empire of galactic history, this first example of intermingled Force-attuned technology was almost entirely lost, save for a few who recalled it, or possessed small examples of the long-lived technology privately.

Behind the scenes
"Why the hell is this thing so rare? There are countless precedents to this skill!"

- Vagrant Lustoid, musing on the nature of mechu-deru.

When writing up the article for Amara, Vagrant's main character in any number of RPs, the long history of the character as well as the fact that to be any use Amara had to have a mechanical body naturally led to the character's mastery of mechu-deru. However, because mechu-deru canonically didn't exist until after the creation of Sith Alchemy in 7000 BBY Vagrant turned to earlier usages of the dark side with machines, in order to create a deep and complex history for the talent. The dark technology of the Infinite Empire was the perfect beginning, given Amara's involvement with the Rakata, and so Vagrant searched out any other meldings of the Force and machinery in the long history of Star Wars.