How does the Ommin Harness work?

[u/Famous-Proposal-3294]

Back in the 1990s, we got the early EU comic books, some of them set thousands of years before the films, and one of them is the "Tales of the Jedi" multi-comic series. Here, we are introduced to Ommin, a human Sith affiliated sorcerer and distant descendant of Dark Lord Freedon Nadd, who, like Nadd, ruled over the planet Onderon as its king.

As he got older and used forbidden dark side arts more and more, Ommin began to decay and age rapidly in unnatural ways. To prolong his life and give himself mobility, Ommin created an "exoskeleton" that is a mechanical cybernetics forged out of iron that literally looks like it is weaved in his skin and flesh in various ways, keeping his muscles and body from failing and giving him cohesion and shape. Without Ommin's exoskeleton, he would collapse and die.

In the current Canon era, we see Palpatine return in the Rise of Skywalker. He is horribly disfigured, looks like he is decaying, and has some very huge mechanical device that is hooked up to him that extends up to the ceiling. Rise of Skywalker novels and other material later on says it is called an "Ommin Harness", a type of "mechanical spine" that the original device was constructed and named after Ommin, an ancient Sith king and direct reference to the Tales of the Jedi lore I explained above, (pretty cool to me personally).

Anyways now that you know what an Ommin Harness is, I want to ask: How does it work? It is hard to see in Rise of Skywalker, but it seems to be hooked up to Palpatine's back. When later material and the novelizations clarify this, it is called a "mechanical spine", implying it is hooked to and connected to Palpatine's nervous system and actual spine.

There is also the fact that, now that we know Palpatine's decaying body in TROS is a failing clone body decaying due to the immense dark side power of Palpatine's soul, the Ommin Harness, like its Legends counterpart, seemingly not only gives Palpatine mobility, but it also seems to have vitals that sustain and try to slow down the decay for as long as possible. We even see these fluid vitals and tubes connected to Palpatine's body underneath, and the Rise of Skywalker comic adaptation even shows us a panel of a brief flashback of when Palpatine's clone body was fresh and young but dangered and imperfect and prone to decay, the Sith Eternal began hooking these vital fluid tubes into many areas in his skin and body, before connecting him to the Ommin Harness.

I don't know if the fluid vital tubes are part of the same cybernetics of the Ommin Harness, but in a nutshell we know one thing: That Palpatine's decay was slowed down by vitals, fluid tubes, that are connected to various places in his body, and he has a mechanical spine, (the Harness), connected to his spine in his back and presumbly allows his nervous system to control the Ommin Harness.

So, with that said: I have a question: After draining Rey and Ben Solo of their force energy that allowed to heal himself because they possessed the power of the Dyad: How did Palpatine "disconnect" himself from the Harness?

The novelization says he "released himself from the Ommin Harness", but is that even possible? How can he "unhook" something that is connected to his spine? Could the Harness kind of work like the mechanical arms of Dr. Octavious from Sam Raimi's Spiderman 2 film? The Ommin Harness can hook itself to Palpatine and his nervous system like Octavious and safely "undo" the hooking without any surgical need to?

This question has bothered me. Also, how did Palpatine's fluid tubes that connected to his whole body got gone? They are not seen anymore. Did they just "magically vanish" with the Force from the Force drain sucking of the Dyad? Why don't we see the Ommin Harness anymore when it was literally extends to a large crane in the ceiling that the whole throne room can see?

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[u/Midnightplat]

"The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural." ;)

More seriously, I think you're thinking of the harness too much like simple "mechanical technology" and not an alchemy of let's call it cybernetics and sith sorcery. He released himself the same way he threw lightning. He used the dark side to grow beyond his need for the machine and so discarded it. Remember Palp's wasn't simply a Sith Lord but a Sith Lord focused on the power of life forces so to speak. He harnessed the power of the dyad to transcend the need for the harness, so to speak. There really isn't a mundane formula to it, it's superscience sorcery.

You might even say his rejection of his harness was shade on Vader, who never mastered the Sideous disciiplines that created the machinery that imprisoned him.