Mission to rescue Shmi Skywalker Lars

During the Separatist Crisis, Anakin Skywalker traveled to Tatooine in an attempt to rescue his mother, Shmi Skywalker Lars, from a camp of Tusken Raiders. This followed weeks of visions in which Skywalker saw his mother suffering. Meanwhile, he was tasked by the Jedi Council with protecting Senator Padmé Amidala, who was the target of multiple assassination attempts by the Confederacy of Independent Systems, so he traveled with her to her homeworld of Naboo for safety. While there, he had more dreams of his mother in pain and chose to leave Naboo for Tatooine.

Skywalker and Amidala, who chose to help him, arrived in the settlement of Mos Espa and learned that Watto, Skywalker's master from when he was a slave, had sold Shmi to a moisture farmer, Cliegg Lars, years earlier and that Lars had freed her and married her. Skywalker learned from the Lars' that Shmi had been kidnapped by Tusken Raiders and set out to find their camp, where he discovered that Shmi had been severely beaten and was near-death. She died in his arms, and Skywalker slaughtered the entire camp out of pure rage and to avenge his mom.

The slaughter of the Sand People became one of Skywalker's first steps towards the dark side of the Force. His inability to let go of his attachments led him to fall to the dark side and become Darth Vader, a Dark Lord of the Sith, in a failed attempt to save Amidala—who by then had become his wife—from death. Vader continued to hold a grudge against all Tusken Raiders for decades after his mother's death.

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