Template:CUSWFN/XIII FGSW

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{| style="border: 1px solid #e8e8e8; padding: 1em; margin: auto" bgcolor="#e8e8e8" align=center The Completely Unofficial Star Wars Fanon Newsletter Volume XII - May, 2008  Hello, , and, once more, the CUSWFN is here to greet you right at your doorstep, for May, 2008!
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Black Armor: An Editorial on Dark Troopers

 * Written by MPK

, the first game in the Jedi Knight series, put the player in the shoes of a rebel agent named in his battle against a secret weapon being developed by the. Although technologically a primitive game by modern standards, Dark Forces is a great FPS game and I highly recommend it to anyone who doesn't already have it. It even has a modding community to this very day, even though it's over a decade old. Now that is saying something.

Dark Forces was made back in what many people view as the Golden Age of Lucasarts— back when they always made thier own games, when they almost always kicked ass, and when they weren't always Star Wars games. Other products of the Golden Age include adventure games such as Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis and TIE Fighter, the second in a series of fighter simulation games and the only game in the entire Star Wars license which I believe beats hands-down. Of course, at this point I'm sure I appear to be rambling on about "the good ol' days", which is true, but believe it or not, this is relevent to the topic that this section is devoted to. The point I'm trying to make here is that back when Dark Forces was made, Star Wars was in many ways a lot more consistent with itself than it is now. You'll see what I mean in a minute. s were first introduced to canon in the game Dark Forces as a project run by an Imperial general named, to develop s for the Empire to use to reinforce their ranks. Dark troopers came in three phases. The first was thin and skeletal in appearance, armed with a shield on one arm to deflect laser fire, and a vibroblade on the other arm. I suppose they would be effective in close-quarters, but I'm kind of surprised at how little similarity it has to the other kinds. Anyway, Phase II dark troopers were designed to look similar to actual stormtroopers, but larger and with armor that was darker in color (kind of surprising, considering the name). The Phase IIs were heavily armored, capable of flight with jetpacks built into them, and armed with s specifically designed for the droid to use. A small amount of Phase II troopers decimated a rebel base on the planet, and it's a small wonder. Although not invulnerable, dark trooper armor was capable of taking heavy punishment from small-arms fire, and their assault cannons were capable of killing people in one shot. It is also evident that the dark troopers could be used to combat vehicles, since the assault cannon also possessed a rocket launcher. Needless to say, a single dark trooper would easily be enough to f*** up quite a lot of rebel scum.

The Phase III dark trooper is a fricking beast. Imagine Mr. T, but encased in POWER steel. The Phase III is nearly identical in appearance to the Phase II, but the main difference in the design is the high quantity of steroids used in the droid's construction and operation. To be more accurate, it's actually a POWER suit that a person climbs into, rather than a droid, with a jetpack and an assault cannon with four barrels. Forget the above comparisons; that's easily worth two Mr. Ts.

All right, that's enough. Chances are, anyone who's ever heard of Dark Forces already knows all that stuff I just recited. Why did I recite it? Well, the reason is to point out what has happened to dark troopers since Dark Forces game out in 1995. The thing is that they changed. They were brought back after the project's total destruction in Dark Forces with no explanation and with almost no resemblances.

If I recall correctly, the first incorrect appearance of Dark troopers is in Star Wars: Battlefront. While they do have the properly colored armor as well as jetpacks, the DTs in Battlefront don't really have any other similarities. They don't have the assault cannons or heavy armor they should have. Sure, I know it might be for gameplay purposes, but if they weren't going to do it right, then they shouldn't have at all. Although it's only loosely faithful to its original appearance (with them not only being substantially weaker but not even being droids), the dark trooper in Battlefront can be argued to be the most faithful to the original than any other portrayal.

Now we move on to the dark troopers as seen in the infamous Star Wars: Galaxies. I'm actually not sure which one came first (Battlefront or Galaxies), but I suspect they happened around the same time. Anyway, in the days before the Combat Upgrade, I remember walking around Bestine (a city on Tatooine), and in addition to the regular patrols of stormtroopers (along with ridiculously out-of-place s), I see these weird-looking troopers walking around, with significantly different helmets, among other things. Since my in-game options were set to only show NPCs' names rather than what they were (I was unaware of this at the time), all I knew what that he was RAR-095 (or whatever). That left me to wonder what the hell they were. I often thought that they were actually wookies in special stormtrooper armor, but that still didn't make any damn sense.

It was not until some time later that I realized that RAR-095 was a. This didn't make any sense, so I looked them up at the only place which seemed to have a shred of information: Wookieepedia.

"The Triumphant-class dark trooper was a variant of the dark trooper, a deadly next-generation stormtrooper/battle droid used by the Galactic Empire. In 1.5 ABY, a unit of Triumphant-class dark troopers escorted Darth Vader aboard his shuttle ST321 during the operations Molecular Clamp, Sieve, Green Light, and Take Down in the cities of Bestine on Tatooine, Coronet City on Corellia, and Theed on Naboo."

- Wookieepedia

So, in other words, they're dark troopers. That tells me a lot. As you can see from the images, these dark troopers bear no resemblance whatsoever to the ones seen in Dark Forces. They don't even have the right colored armor! This is just like in Battlefront, where the only reason they put the dark troopers in was so that there would be dark troopers, no matter how different they are. Since SWG is the only place where these types of dark troopers appear, there is no information anywhere as to what sort of combat role they have, what weaponry they used, where they came from, or why they were made. I've never really seen a dark trooper in SWG use the same weapon twice. I've seen them use anything from carbines to rifles, and even batons. As if Galaxies wasn't confusing enough, they have to introduce three types that look the exact same: the Triumphant-class, Exogen-class, and Glory-class. There is no information on any of these, either. According to the redlinks at Wookieepedia, there's also Oppressor 9, Oppressor 7, and Victory-class troopers as well.

That's not all, either. There's also Black hole dark troopers and dark novatroopers (pictured). The Black hole dark troopers are (as the name suggests) probably supposed to have something to do with the s (nicknamed Black hole troopers), which, although they're kind of cool, also have no information pertaining to what they specialize in. The actual function of the Black Hole stormtroopers is already ambiguous and confusing enough, but this is just overkill. The dark novatroopers are probably supposed to be related somehow to the s, but I haven't a clue what their role in relation to them is. I don't even know what the hell the regular novatroopers do. There's just as little information about the novatroopers as there is about these dark troopers.

Well, at least they're starting to get the color right. I guess the word dark in the phrase dark trooper wasn't enough for them to immediately catch on. The last dark trooper "variant" in Star Wars: Galaxies is the "", which I guess is intended to be related to the in some way. Again, it's never explained how; they're just there, sticking out like a sore thumb. Inquisitorium dark troopers are easily the stupidest of the SWG variants, due mostly in part to two factors. The first is that they carry double-bladed lightsabers, and the second is that their general appearance looks like it was modeled on what would happen if spent the last twenty years squatted in a chair in front of a television drinking beer and scarfing KFC. That's the dynamic duo of Lucasarts and SOE for you.

The last appearance of dark troopers that I am aware of (so far) is the ones seen in Empire at War: Forces of Corruption. When I first heard that not only would they be in the game, but also they would have the three phases, I thought for a while that Lucasarts had wised up and that would this time around, they would actually figure out what the f*** a dark trooper looked like before they put it in a game.

As it turned out, they got the dark troopers in FoC about 39% right. While the Phase I had basically the same weaponry that it was supposed to do, the appearance didn't really match what there was in Dark Forces. Not at all, in fact. It's like they just read a description of what they were instead of actually looking at them. Either that, or they went with the bogus illustration from the New Essential Guide to Droids, which appears to be identical. The thing isn't even properly colored, either. The Phase II in Forces of Corruption was, to my disgust and bewilderment, extremely similar to the ones from Galaxies. The things are even white. There are some minor differences in the helmet, among other things, but that's it. They don't even give them the assault cannons, but instead some weirdo-chaingun thing. Interestingly enough, the FoC appearance matches that of the New Essential Guide to Droids. What were they thinking? Is it too much to ask for some consistency?

While the Phase III in FoC is (out of the three) probably the most faithful to the originals, it isn't by much. They got the color half-right, by having it black instead of white, when it's supposed to be dark gray. Instead of the assault cannon, it has wrist-mounted lasers. And yet, the thing moves slower than molasses for no apparent reason. Upon closer inspection, it really doesn't resemble the original Phase III from Dark Forces that much except for the color.

What exactly is Lucasarts' problem with this? How is it so hard to get a screenshot from Dark Forces to see what dark troopers look like, rather than fumbling around in the dark without even caring if you find what you're looking for? So much for continuity. I guess it'll be answered in another canon source (such as Leeland Chee's blog) soon enough.

''CUSWFN edition XIII CUSWFN EXIII''
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