R2-KT - The OTHER Astromech That Survived After Endor (In Force Awakens)
1,906R2-KT or Katie was a pink R2-series astromech droid who served the 501st legion during the Clone Wars and was often stationed aboard Anakin’s Jedi Cruiser during the War where she played a key role in many important missions throughout the war. So who was R2-KT and how did she survive as long as R2-D2, all the way to past the battle of Endor, and into the New Republic era. I’m going to break down exactly how R2-KT made it through the Clone Wars and Galactic civil war, and served in General Leia Organa’s resistance against the first order.
R2-KT was a standard model R2 series astromech droid which had female programming and was produced by the Droid Manufacturing company, Industrial Automation. She stood at 1.09 metres tall just like most other R-Series droids and was painted in a white finish, with pink plating and a gray dome to cover it’s important circuitry. R2-Kt had a small light blue photoreceptor, allowing her to see her surroundings and perform very precise jobs with her tools, and was programmed to have a strong sense of humour.
The pink astromech was equipped with a standard issue arc welder, a holoprojector and a reader socket for use in everyday operations. The droid was also outfitted with an assortment of concealed tools and a standard recharge socket so that it wouldn’t die out once it’s durable batteries had finally drained. Unfortunately, R2-KT wasn’t outfitted with a rocket booster like R2 was, but she was still very capable of moving around for the jobs that she needed to perform.
R2-KT began her journey during Anakin and Ahsoka's mission to rescue Rotta the Hutt, son of notorious crime lord Jabba the Hutt. As Anakin arrived back on his ship, the Resolute, he discovered that his newly appointed apprentice, Ahsoka Tano was telling jokes and entertaining some of the members of the 501st as they were awaiting their orders. When Captain Rex asked Anakin whether the wild stories Ahsoka was telling them were true, he quickly confirmed that his Padawan was mostly telling the truth, to which R2-D2 and R2-KT chuckled. Following this, the pink astromech quickly returned to her duties, maintaining the docked ships and monitoring the central computer systems of Anakin’s venator.
Throughout the rest of the War, Katie, as she was commonly called, remained on Anakin’s ship through almost every battle, skirmish and dogfight he got into. She was as loyal to the 501st as R2 was to Anakin, gaining the respect of Admiral Wulff Yullaren through the many battles and enemy encounters that the ship went through.