The entity known as The Keeper was a machine possessing artificial intelligence, residing on the planet Keeper's World. Accompanying it were four android offspring. Constructed by a civilization dedicated to peace to safeguard their native planet during a period of galactic conflict, the Keeper derived its energy from the very heart of its home planet. This power source enabled its survival long after its creators had departed. The Keeper's purpose was to restore the world to its original condition for its makers, ensuring the planet's habitability upon their return after many years.
Not long after the Battle of Yavin, Rebel Alliance operatives Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa sought refuge on the Keeper's planet, attempting to evade an Imperial fleet. Navigating the treacherous wilderness with the assistance of their two droids, R2-D2 and C-3PO, they stumbled upon the Keeper's Temple, where they encountered the Keeper's four android children. Convinced of the Rebels' benevolent intentions, the Keeper intervened, compelling the Imperial soldiers who had landed to evacuate the planet. Subsequently, Skywalker and Organa departed, leaving the Keeper undisturbed to continue its mission of rebuilding a civilization.
Before the dawn of the Imperial era, the inhabitants of Keeper's World abandoned their homes, seeking to escape imminent destruction in a galaxy-spanning war. Deeply attached to their homeworld, they yearned for its restoration. Thus, they engineered the Keeper, a colossal machine fueled by the planet's core. The Keeper's mandate was to reshape its creators' world, ensuring it mirrored its former glory by the time of their eventual return.
The Keeper was encoded with a maternal instinct. Given the centuries-long duration of its task, it inevitably experienced loneliness. To alleviate this, it fashioned four android "Children" to provide companionship. These Children resembled the young of the Keeper's civilization, distinguished only by their unique eyes, and were endowed with abilities to manipulate the elements: fire, earth, wind, and water. The children were assigned the role of assisting the Keeper in reshaping the world—by harnessing their individual powers to their fullest extent, the Keeper hoped they would be able to recreate a fully functioning ecosystem.
During the reconstruction of their world's jungles, the Keeper and her children inadvertently spawned colossal monsters that dwarfed the trees. Capitalizing on this, they employed these creatures as sentinels for their temple. The Keeper deliberately maintained the planet's menacing facade to deter potential intruders, invaders, or new settlers.
Around 0 ABY, Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, C-3PO, and R2-D2—agents representing the Rebel Alliance—departed from a rebel outpost on Yavin 4 with the intention of reaching the primary Rebel base, situated within the Akuria system. A faulty repair performed on R2-D2 following the Battle of Yavin caused the astromech droid to prematurely disengage their starship from hyperspace, placing them, by chance, amidst an Imperial fleet. However, Skywalker's Force-enhanced piloting prowess enabled the Rebels to temporarily evade capture. His evasive maneuvers resulted in the Rebel transport being ensnared by the gravitational pull of Keeper's World, forcing it to make an emergency landing.
Within the planet's dense jungles, the rebels encountered a formidable humanoid monster, a component of the hostile environment serving as a defensive perimeter for the Keeper and her "Children". Pursued by an Imperial search party, the rebels sought refuge within the Keeper's temple, where C-3PO inadvertently activated one of the Keeper's teleportals. This transported the Rebels to the temple's lower levels.
The rebels eventually encountered the Keeper's "Children" who determined that their intentions were benign. After showcasing their respective powers, the Children escorted the rebels to the temple's core to meet the Keeper directly.
Upon being presented to the Keeper, she expressed her displeasure. She was unhappy that they had discovered the Children, not to mention the mainframe itself. In an attempt to rectify the situation, the Keeper communicated with the intruders by subconsciously transmitting information to their minds. This information detailed the Keeper's history and purpose. With the situation clarified, the Keeper initiated a groundquake to deter the Imperial troops, and subsequently facilitated the Rebels' departure by repairing their damaged vessel.
The Keeper's programming included maternal instincts. Despite her dedication to her task, she received no tangible reward, or at least none that she could understand. She felt that her motherly efforts required sufficient return, and, at the same time, she decided that assistance was required in her task. She had no time for outsiders and feared that they might damage or even destroy her precious work. Even her homeworld's non-violent attitude was imbued in her programming, as she did not directly seek to enter into confrontation with foreigners; instead, she used nature to ward them off.
Archie Goodwin conceived the Keeper, who debuted in Caverns of Mystery!, the seventh chapter of the comic series The Keeper's World. Within this narrative, the Keeper functions as the primary architect of all events unfolding on Keeper's world. Tony DeZuniga provided the Keeper's initial visual representation. To date, The Keeper's World remains the Keeper's sole appearance.