Elthree Assault Team

The Elthree Assault Team was a group of seven battle droids, founded by L3-37 to counter Fyzen Gor's Phylanx Redux Transmitter. Gor planned to use the Phylanx to transmit a virus that would command droids around the Galaxy to rise up and kill organic beings.

Description

The droids of the Assault Team looked just like their maker, L3-37, but each had a unique personality. Some had masculine programming, others feminine. All were programmed to resist the Phylanx Transmitter's kill command. For about fifteen years, the droids searched for the Phylanx and awaited the right moment to destroy it, meanwhile producing a total of seven team members and propagating their antivirus programming. The droids' search scattered them across different parts of the Galaxy.^[1]

History

Creation

Around 11 BBY,^[3] L3-37 brought Lando Calrissian in the Millennium Falcon to the ice asteroids of the Mesulan Remnants Belt in search of the Phylanx Transmitter, which she had learned about through her associate D9. The Falcon stumbled into a skirmish between Fyzen Gor, the Transmitter's creator, and several Imperial TIE fighters. After the battle, L3 tracked Gor and found the transmitter, which then consisted of a droid head embedded in what looked like an accretion of junk the size of a speeder floating in space. L3 and Calrissian fought off Gor and his Original Dozen droids long enough to approach the Phylanx. Elthree rode on the outside of the hull as Calrissian flew the Falcon in close. In a data exchange that L3 later described as "intercourse," the Phylanx transmitted her the operating codes that contained his mission and his kill command, while she implanted a retrovirus that would plant a seed of doubt into his programming.^[1]

Using the code obtained from the Phylanx, L3 designed antivirus programming that could neutralize the kill command, rendering a droid immune. She combined this Phalanx-derived coding with her own body design to build the first Elthree Assault Team droid - the offspring of their procreative act. That first droid in turn had instructions to build new versions of himself, which he carried out over the next several years. In this way the assault team took shape.^[1]

Skirmish in the Mesulan Remnants

More than fifteen years later,^[4] the Phylanx Transmitter was preparing to unleash his droid virus. Before he could, L3's retrovirus succeeded in convincing him to stop the massacre of organics that this would trigger. While he could not directly counter his own core programming, the Phylanx managed to send out a distress signal that alerted the Elthree Assault Team. The droids gathered together, traced the signal, and set off to complete their mission.^[1]

At the same time, Calrissian and Han Solo, with a group of companions, were also trying to locate the Phylanx. They found Gor and his Original Dozen in the Mesulan Remnants - now in a different location - and engaged them in another space skirmish. The Elthree Assault Team arrived just then. The Phylanx recognized them and asked for their help. They joined the battle, using the asteroids as cover as they shot at the Dozen just outside the hull of the Phylanx, which by then had grown into a cube of junk of enormous proportions.^[1]

The Elthree Assault Team's arrival allowed Calrissian to penetrate to the interior of the Phylanx. Eventually he destroyed its droid head with thermal detonators. At least two Assault Team droids survived and rescued Calrissian from the dying Phylanx. They brought him back to the shuttle Chevalier, where Solo and their companions could tend to his injuries and return to Chandrila. Their purpose fulfilled, the two droids left the shuttle. They now planned to wander the Galaxy, perhaps fighting crime.^[1]

Appearances

• Last Shot (and audiobook) (First appearance)

Sources

• Star Wars: Timelines
• Star Wars Encyclopedia: The Comprehensive Guide to the Star Wars Galaxy (Indirect mention only)

Notes and references