“ | These are third-generation design. They are no longer suits. The human inside was the final weakness to be solved. They're droids. | „ |
~ Dr. Pershing commenting on the Phase III Troopers. |
The Dark Troopers are an antagonistic force in the epic space opera franchise Star Wars. They were formally introduced in the 1995 video game Star Wars: Dark Forces and made several video game appearances, as part of Star Wars Legends. A platoon of them acted as the secondary antagonists of the second season of the 2019 live-action streaming series The Mandalorian, introducing them as canon for the first time.
The Dark Troopers were an elite fighting force formed under the banner of Sheev Palpatine's Galactic Empire. The first two phases of Dark Troopers were human soldiers encased in suits of state of the art combat armor. However, as the Dark Trooper Program progressed, the Empire opted to make the Troopers purely robotic, introducing the Phase III Dark Trooper combat droids.
The Phase III Troopers were capable of operating within the vacuum of space, shrugging off consecutive blaster fire, and producing feats of incredible physical strength. A single third-generation Dark Trooper was able to fight toe-to-toe with a seasoned Mandalorian warrior.
Roughly five years after the fall of the Empire, approximately forty Dark Troopers were in the service of Moff Gideon and his Imperial remnant. However, the entirety of Gideon's platoon was destroyed by Jedi Master Luke Skywalker when he stormed the Moff's cruiser in search of the Force-sensitive infant Grogu.
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Troopers by Ludwig Göransson