Dark Trooper project

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The Dark Trooper project,[5] or the dark trooper program[2] was an Imperial Department of Military Research[3] program whose goal was to create[2] a force of soldiers known as "Dark Troopers"[4] for the Galactic Empire.[2] It was originally launched as a way to supply humans with a new armor.[3] The first form of the Dark Trooper came from taking clone troopers and providing them with cybernetics.[5]

The experimental Phase II Dark Trooper was evaluated by the Imperial Military during the Galactic Civil War.[6] By the third generation of the dark trooper, it was decided the pilot was the final weakness in the design. Thus, it was decided to make the dark trooper a type of battle droid. A platoon of third generation dark troopers was used by Moff Gideon's Imperial remnant[4] around the year 9 ABY.[7] IDMR scientists were stationed aboard Gideon's light cruiser to maintain these dark troopers,[1] which were held in cold storage due to their excessive power requirements.[4]

Models

Models developed under the Dark Trooper program were:

Behind the scenes

The dark trooper program was first mentioned in the Star Wars canon in Dawn of Rebellion, a 2018 sourcebook for the Star Wars Roleplaying Game by Fantasy Flight Games.[2] It made its first appearance in "Chapter 12: The Siege," the twelfth episode of Star Wars: The Mandalorian.[1] It was originally created for the 1995 Star Wars Legends video game Star Wars: Dark Forces.[9]

Dawn of Rebellion references the dark trooper program as an Imperial program designed on creating Imperial battle droids, only for it to end in failure. The failure contributed to the Joint Chiefs becoming disinterested in the use of combat droids, with the notable exception of the KX-series security droid.[2] However, most canon sources have framed the dark trooper program as starting with combat suits and only later shifting to create combat droids.[3][10]

Appearances

Sources

Notes and references

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 The-Mandalorian-logo Star Wars: The Mandalorian — "Chapter 12: The Siege"
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Dawn of Rebellion
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Star Wars: Character Encyclopedia, Updated and Expanded Edition
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 The-Mandalorian-logo Star Wars: The Mandalorian — "Chapter 16: The Rescue"
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 SideshowLogo2021 Iron Studios Art Scale Battle Diorama Series (1:10 Scale Statue: Dark Trooper) (backup link)
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Star Wars: Commander
  7. ↑ StarWars.com SWCC 2019: 9 Things We Learned from The Mandalorian Panel on StarWars.com (backup link) establishes that Star Wars: The Mandalorian is set about five years after the events of Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi, which Star Wars: Galactic Atlas dates to 4 ABY. Therefore, the events of "Chapter 12: The Siege," must have taken place around 9 ABY.
  8. ↑ The-Mandalorian-logo Star Wars: The Mandalorian — "Chapter 23: The Spies"
  9. ↑ Star Wars: Dark Forces
  10. ↑ AtomicMassGames-Favicon Scene to Stats: Dark Troopers on Atomic Mass Games' official website (January 10, 2023) (backup link)