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Darth Vader, if you ask any competent doctor, has absolutely no business being alive. Even now, years after his injuries and countless treatments, there are still a myriad of reasons this man should clearly be dead. Most corpses I’ve seen are in better condition than him. I’d make a list of things I could write up as a viable cause of death, but you’ve probably heard it all before and I highly doubt that you care. And yet, for some incomprehensible reason this man is still breathing. (Well, that would be the respirator, which could keep a skeleton sucking in air. It’s a figure of speech.)
It’s magic. It has to be. Or, ‘The Force’ as the Jedi and other stuck up nerfherders like to call it. It’s fucking magic. There’s no other reasonable explanation. I need a drink
Doctors assigned to him generally just stick some metal replacements in his body to (presumably, and by saying presumably, I’m giving them way too much benefit of the doubt) fix at least one of the things that are wrong with him and call it a day. What else are you supposed to do with a man that, by any logic and medical understanding, should’ve been dead a decade ago?
Naturally, the problems with being Vader’s doctor aren’t even close to ending there. For someone so apparently important to the Empire, you’re not exactly willing to spend a lot of credits on his health, which leads to some rather interesting decisions when it comes to his prosthetics. I could find better tech (and customers with a bigger budget) in a junk shop on Jakku. And I’ve been to Jakku, that’s fucking saying something. And let’s not forget the incomplete, perplexing, and at times infuriating medical history, plagued by irrational decisions that border on— well actually most of them have travelled several miles beyond the border of being absolutely ridiculous. (Doesn’t anyone here know how to properly treat third-degree burns?)
This being the Galactic Empire I’m working for, it’s only natural to expect to claw my way through a tangle of restrictions and red tape trying to find anything out or get anything done (I thought this was supposed to be an improvement on the Republic) but this?! This is downright infuriating! Why am I not allowed to know the purpose of the chemicals that get injected into this man every seven hours? And why, when I try to research them, do I end up reading about some strange anti-Jedi cult that died out centuries ago? Why are none of Vader’s doctors even permitted to talk to the man about his own medical procedures?
Why the hell did I accept this job?
And, to top it all off, for some odd reason that definitely has nothing to do with our glorious, benevolent Emperor’s (obviously nonexistent) sadistic tendencies, Vader is not allowed to be given sedatives or painkillers, so any operations one might want to conduct have to be done without anaesthetic, while he’s awake. And (understandably) screaming. And breaking your equipment with his kriffing magic powers. And possibly your neck, if you’re unlucky. (The fact that I’m considering crossing out the ‘un’ says a lot about the situation here. Death would be a mercy)
In other words, your Imperial Majesty, first of your reign, Emperor of our great Galactic Empire, man who should really take better care of his (medically dead) subordinates, I quit.