From the Movies
Small and incongruous on the decks of powerful Imperial war machines, mouse droids are ever-present annoyances buzzing back and forth between tasks. They are small, boxy wheeled droids that provide courier and minor maintenance duties at industrial facilities such as those found on Mustafar, and space-based locations such as Star Destroyers and the Death Stars.
From the Expanded Universe
Developed by the rodent-like Chadra Fan species, the MSE-6 unit was marketed by the now-defunct Rebaxan Columni corporation as "cute." Consumers, instead, found the droids as annoying as, well, mice. The company had a sizable economic blunder on its hands. They had produced billions of MSE-6s for an audience that found them repulsive.
To help ease the financial fallout, Rebaxan Columni sold their entire lot of MSE-6s at a cut rate to the Empire. The Navy, which was growing at a tremendous rate under Palpatine's New Order, readily accepted the deal, and put the little droids to work aboard the ships of the fleet.
MSE-6s are general purpose droids with multiple capabilities, but singular function. Their box-like shells conceal articulated manipulators, and can hold a single modular circuit matrix, or "C-matrix," which housed one skill. Common skill packages for MSE-6s include janitorial cleanup, security, basic repair and communications. MSE-6s could chain together to form a tiny train of droids with multiple skills.
Mouse droids also serve as guides, leading troops through the long corridor mazes to their assigned posts. Since such duty requires them to have complete readouts of their assigned sections, they are rigged to melt down should they be captured by insurgents. This gives a mouse droid a strong self-preservation instinct, and they will flee if confronted with danger.
Behind the Scenes
The humorous moment in
A New Hope wherein Chewbacca frightens a skittish mouse droid, was improvised on set and not scripted. The droid appears throughout the Imperial installations of the classic trilogy, though no real hints of its function are apparent. Perhaps the most useful application of mouse droids has been in LucasArts'
Dark Forces video games, where destroyed mouse droids provide valuable battery packs that aid Rebel saboteurs on their missions. Besides, it's just fun to punch the little droids.
