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" Nothing about Vader seemed natural—not his towering height, his deep voice, his antiquated diction—yet despite those qualities and the mask and respirator, Tarkin believed him to be more man than machine. Although he had clearly twisted the powers of the Force to his own dark purposes, Vader’s innate strength was undeniable. His contained rage was genuine, as well, and not simply the result of some murderous cyberprogram. But the quality that made him most human was the fierce dedication he demonstrated to the Emperor. It was that genuflecting obedience, the steadfast devotion to execute whatever task the Emperor assigned, that had given rise to so many rumors about Vader: that he was a counterpart to the Confederacy’s General Grievous the Emperor had been holding in reserve; that he was an augmented human or near-human who had been trained or had trained himself in the ancient dark arts of the Sith; that he was nothing more than a monster fashioned in some clandestine laboratory. Many believed that the Emperor’s willingness to grant so much authority to such a being heralded the shape of things to come, for it was beyond dispute that Vader was the Empire’s first terror weapon. "
― John Jackson Miller , Star Wars: The Rise of the Empire
