In line with my first entry on using our imagination to come up with solutions to the saga's little curiosities, titled "Use your Imagination, Luke", here's another instance in which I've managed to answer my own question with a little personal reasoning. It's not perfect, but it works for me.

A lot of people ask a very simple, and a very good question:

"If you're going to hide the son of Skywalker, why hide him on Tatooine, with the last name Skywalker? Why not hide him on Corellia with the last name 'Liebowitz' or something?

And while we're at it, if you're going to hide the daughter of Skywalker, why not send her to a backwater world with no royal status?

You call this hiding? I call that advertisement!"

Like I say, a pretty good question. And forgive my ignorance if an answer has ever been offered - I've just never seen one (although I'm sure one or two exist). So I came up with my own, for personal consumption, if you will.

The answer, to me, is easy -they know the Empire is going to find them anyway. The Empire finds everybody. But what or who are they going to find?

Let's first set up the scenario. In the waning days of the Clone Wars, as Order 66 was being carried out, Master Yoda and Obi-Wan have a lot to worry about as two of the very few remaining Jedi. On top of their worries are two new arrivals to the Galaxy, little Luke and Leia Skywalker, infant heirs to a dark Force legacy.

Master Yoda would have put a great deal of thought into this. He knew that Anakin must not know of his offspring, because if he knew, the Emperor knew, and they would both be found, twisted and made to serve the Empire's needs, or worse yet, destroyed to better suit them. Keeping them alive likewise gave Obi-Wan and Yoda a distant New Hope that Vader and Sidious could be defeated, because surely few others in the Galaxy would have the natural Force abilities these two children would have.

One thing was in their favor - Anakin had no idea of their actual names, and he presumably didn't know he had twins. But how to hide them? Let's look at the problems and goals of hiding the Skywalker twins...

1 - Their identity has to be concealed.

Luke and Leia have to blend into the background of the Galaxy as if they had always been a part of its fabric. No direct mention of Anakin or Padme could be connected with them. In one way or another, their lives would have to be for the most part aloof and innocuous, within reason.

2 - They have to be separated.

Having them together makes them more conspicuous as siblings and twins, but more importantly, it makes them an easy target to capture in one swing of Imperial might. Separating them to different home worlds increases both of their chances, and builds redundancy failsafes into Yoda's and Obi-Wan's plans. As cold and calculating as it sounds, it was still just prudent - if the Empire found one, the other might survive untouched.

3 - They have to be guarded.

Even with these failsafes in place, the value of these children was immense. And yet how to place a guard over them without indicating their extreme importance to the fate of the Galaxy? They would have to be watched, discretely, and a contingency plan be put into effect should they ever come close to danger.

All of these conditions, and more, had to be answered in flight away from Imperial death squads. Now, how does this answer the question, then, of leaving Luke on Tatooine with the last name Skywalker?

Did that fall in the Senate Chamber scramble Yoda's melon or what? Derr?

Not so fast - let's look at one possible scenario. In the years of the Clone Wars, part of Palpatine's growing powers and sweeping security acts could conceivably be to require every citzen of the Empire to be fully documented with complete records on their identity. This would be done presumably in an effort to prevent the movement of insurgent elements within the Core worlds, and to hamper the efforts of spies and saboteurs. Part of the solution: DNA testing.

The idea of DNA testing provides a few sources of information for the Emperor, namely "Who's in my Empire" and "Who's not who they say they are?" and and "Who has excellent DNA?" Why the last one? Because, regardless of if this was ever done, it is established that the Emperor knew diversification of the cloned army would be pragmatic. Having a single genetic pool, which could likewise be susceptable to the same hazards of disease or other limitations, could prove to be a chink in his Imperial armor. Solidarity had served its ultimate purpose in Order 66. So perhaps as one of his first Emergency Acts, he would have made it mandatory that all citizens submit a DNA record as well as all vital statistics verified at the municipal level and passed up to Republic (and later Imperial) command.

With one caveat - DNA testing would be legally required by the common populace, but voluntary by dignitaries, officials, Moffs, world leaders, royal houses, and, etc. Why the difference? Because in carrying out this enterprise Palpatine would not be so careless as to require every single citizen to have a fully documented record. In a system that knows everything, he needed his most valuable resources in this fiefdom to be relatively free of governmental scrutiny. He would have to protect his Left Hand from his Right, lest the Xixor's of his Empire be laid bare in some records warehouse.

Moreover, as such an endeavor would already be a massive undertaking, there would simply be no reason to document the identity of the Galaxy's most famous people, especially people who's lineage would often be extremely well-documented to begin with. Doing so could be compared to the Emperor of Earth asking the British Royal family to submit DNA records and be issued ID cards. This just wouldn't fit into his plans for galactic efficiency, nor his idea of a society of privileged upper crust that served his needs.

No, his Galactic Census would be confined to the little people, because that's where you hide saboteurs to begin with.

Going back to Yoda's dillemma then: What to do with each child? The Force's providence answers one question immediately, by Bail Organa, Viceroy of Alderaan, and head of it's Royal Family. He tells Yoda that he will take the baby girl, Leia, to be their adopted child. This immediately places Leia away from Padme and Anakin into a world where she could not possibly be mistaken for anyone else's child. As a member of the House of Alderaan, she would be safe from DNA testing, and from Imperial prying eyes. No one would suspect the child of Alderaan's Ruling House had come from a different family. Leia would be safest from Imperial eyes hiding in plain sight, as a Princess of Alderaan, and would likewise be protected by her own security from early on. All three conditions satisfied: concealment, separation, and guarded.

One down, one to go. What to do with Luke? Yoda and Obi-Wan would find themselves out of Royal Family members to hide children with, and Luke could not accompany Leia.

And herein lies what I believe to be a possible explanation for Yoda's actions with Luke. He would know that Luke would eventually be subject to DNA documentation. That would place him as a person of curiosity for the Emperor. For all their efforts to hide Luke, Obi-Wan and Yoda would be powerless to prevent at least his family affiliation from coming to light.

However... all they would know is that he is a Skywalker. Bear in mind again that neither Anakin nor the Emperor knew the children's names, so that would not have been an issue. Moreover, aside from not knowing that Padme even gave birth, and aside from not knowing that they were twins, he would likewise not know if he had a boy or a girl. Therefore, the best thing for Yoda and Obi-Wan to do, especially with Imperial Big Brother watching everyone's identity, would be to say "Here - here you go. A Skywalker on Tatooine. So what?"

In that way, Luke could live with his family on his homeworld, and could successfully undego the eventual identification process without raising too many Imperial eyebrows. Luke could be a distant cousin, the son of a navigator on a spice freighter. He certainly would not be a sibling; Anakin and Palpatine knew he had no brothers and sisters. It didn't matter if he was an uncle or some other relation above Anakin; there were no Force sensitives in Anakin's family before him (Anakin was a Force adept thanks to the process of Force conception, not lineage). It would likewise be unlikely due to Luke's young age. And most importantly, as far as Anakin knows, there is no Luke, son of Anakin. Yoda and Obi-Wan would be able to hide Luke in plain view, even have his identity documented so as not to raise suspicions, and he would be little more than a distant relative of Shmi, at best, even if they made the connection to her or Anakin.

All the conditions would be met - concealment, separation...and with Obi-Wan's sacrifice of exile, a watchful eye to guard him from just beyond the Jundland Wastes. The children of Skywalker could be hidden away to later fulfill their destiny in the redemption of Anakin and the destruction of the Empire.

Like I say, this is just my own personal explanation as to why these children, which were so important to the fate of everything they knew, would be so apparently visible. Sometimes the situation forces upon you hard decisions. Sometimes its best to let something be found, but camoflage it's true nature.

For Obi-Wan and Yoda, the best thing for the Skywalker twins would be to hide them in plain sight, until it would be time to put stock in A New Hope.

It's not perfect, but it works for me.

DM out