Project Harvester was the codename for an Inquisitorius operation by the Galactic Empire to capture young Force-sensitives and turn them into Imperial agents skilled in the ways of the dark side of the Force, all while trying to prevent the Jedi Order from recovering. It was operated from a secret installation on the planet Arkanis, which was connected to the planet’s Imperial headquarters and the Arkanis Academy.
The first inklings of Project Harvester occurred during the galaxy-spanning Clone Wars, which had been started by Darth Sidious, Dark Lord of the Sith, as a pretext for destroying the Jedi Order and creating the Galactic Empire. In 21 BBY, Sidious hired bounty hunter Cad Bane to first break into the Jedi Temple and steal a Jedi holocron. After Bane had stolen the kyber memory crystal in the keeping of Jedi Master Bolla Ropal that held a list of all Force-sensitive children known to the Jedi, and gotten Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker to open the holocron so the crystal could be read during the Battle of Devaron, Sidious had Bane choose four children from the list to kidnap and take to his secret facility on Mustafar. After Bane’s capture on Naboo attempting to abduct the third child he had chosen, Skywalker and his Padawan Ahsoka Tano discovered where Bane had taken the two children he had kidnapped by examining his starfighter, the Xanadu Blood. Skywalker and Tano rescued the two kidnapped children, but the destruction of the facility in the process prevented the Jedi from finding out who had been ultimately responsible.
According to legend, during the early years of the Imperial Era, the Grand Inquisitor stole multiple Force-sensitive children from an orphanage on the planet Gaaten, but Order 66 survivor Kira Vantala arrived and drove him away with the assistance of Force-sensitive orphan Elish, preventing further abductions.
The daughter of Eeth Koth, who was taken from her mother after her father was hunted and killed by Darth Vader, was captured as part of the project. The newly born infant was given to two nursemaids soon after. Sometime later, Zare Leonis‘s sister, Dhara, was also abducted by the Grand Inquisitor as part of the project. In order to find her, Leonis decided that he would have to feign Force-sensitivity in order to be drawn into this project as well. Following the Grand Inquisitor’s death, Dhara was mostly left alone in her cell until she was rescued, unaware that the fearsome individual who had tortured her was dead.