10 Horrifying Facts About the Decraniated Servants You Probably Missed in Solo

Appearing in Rogue One and Solo, the Decraniated represent the true dark side of Star Wars. Doctor Cornelius Evazan created these servants on behalf of criminal boss Dryden Vos. The fate of these former people is scary and disturbing. Here are 5 facts about Decraniated servants you may have missed.  

1. The Decraniated Served on Vos’s Yacht

In the movie Solo, we see several of the Decraniated working on board Crimson Dawn leader Dryden Vos’s yacht, First Light.

They had been made this way by the twisted surgeon Cornelius Evazan who removed large parts of people’s brains. These subjects were then sold as servants to serve the likes of Vos.

The beginning of this video reminds us of how dark Vos and Evazan were and the sad fate of the Decraniated. 

2. The Decraniated Have a Neuro-box Interface

Instead of the top portion of their heads, the decraniated have “a programmable cybernetic implant” called a neuro-box interface.

This installation strips these servants of their identity and makes them subservient.

This aspect of the Decraniated is the most startling and serves as one of “the darkest additions to the new canon.”

They became “unwilling slaves” and were under control of the worst people in the Star Wars galaxy. 

3. Evazan Was in A New Hope

The mad surgeon Evazan was in the first Star Wars movie, A New Hope. We remember him as the one who warns Luke at the Creature Cantina.

Here is the famous scene that led to that encounter and how Evazan expressed his dislike for Luke before Obi-Wan defended him. 

This encounter did not end well for Evazan, but we may not have known that this was the same character who performed the ghastly surgeries in films that were shot later but chronologically came before A New Hope.

4. Evazan Was Not Always an Evil Surgeon

Cornelius Evazan appeared deranged in A New Hope but was not always this way.

As this article explains, Evazan “started as a skilled doctor on his home planet, Alsakan,” but he went mad and performed surgeries to disfigure patients and found that work “creative.” 

Ironically, Evazan’s face was disfigured by a bounty hunter as he entered a world of crime under Jabba the Hutt.

He next became the doctor for the Crimson Dawn syndicate, where he created “cyber-augmented, subservient beings” to serve Vos, other Imperials, and him. 

5. The Decraniated Are Turned Into Living Droids

A post on this discussion board describes “Evazan’s work” as “nothing short of a nightmare” because his “Decraniation process strips a subject of all free will, turning them into living droids” to carry out “the whims of their owners.” It may well be a fate “worse than slavery.” 

As another fan from above posts, decraniation certainly “did its job for making Dryden Vos appear very cruel.” We can say the same for Evazan.

6. The Victims Included Caysin Bog

Caysin Bog was a male humanoid who was blown up during the Jedha insurgency’s attack on the moon Jedha. Rather than let Bog’s fate end there, Evazan (working under the name “Roofoo”) surgically reformed Bog.

This transformation was indeed “a twisted and demented turn of events,” making Bog a Cyber slave too.

Yet, Bog held on to his free will and “some sense of his identity,” despite the loss of his head. This makes Bog a unique victim of Evazan’s work. 

7. The Decraniated Are the Reverse of Lobot

The Decraniated may have originated from Lando Calrissian’s trusted adviser Lobot in Empire Strikes Back.

While the Decraniated were stripped of their mental functions, Lobot was the human “computer liaison officer” who had “a shiny, brain-enhancing device wrapped around the back of his skull.”

Through that contraption, Lobot’s mental abilities were heightened because he could tap into Cloud City’s central computer. 

Lobot’s configuration is not gruesome like the Decraniated’s, but it does conjure up a similar tampering with one’s mental abilities. In this case, it was for the better. 

8. The Decraniated Reflect Moral Compromises

With the addition of the Decraniated, we get a prime example of people “robbed of their humanity” and “the moral compromises made in times of conflict.”

It seems as if the Decraniated are part of an ongoing theme that gives Star Wars a darker edge. 

Since Rogue One and Andor, moral compromises have become a large feature of the galaxy.

The Decraniated are an extreme case of it, along with a Rebels potentially only out for themselves (Cassian Andor) or willing to do Imperial-like things (Luthen Rael). 

9. Decraniated Victims Provide An Unspoken Plot

One of the fascinating aspects of the appearance of the Decraniated in Solo and Rogue One is the lack of discussion about them.

They are silent victims of a horrendous crime and serve as a plot point in the underworld of Vos. 

This article calls out this aspect as part of the “more subdued” “plotting” in Solo. We have to refer to the Visual Guide for Rogue One to get insights into this madness and what point it serves. 

10. It All Comes Down to Money

Believe it or not, the Decraniated originated as “a money-making scheme.” This fact is included in describing Evazan’s initial plans under Vos in a casual way but is among the most alarming.

That these humans were made into living droids of a kind for money gives the undertaking an astonishing crass materialism. It underscores the villainy that appears in Star Wars.