Death Star Trooper

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Death Star Troopers were elite personnel deployed aboard the first Death Star,^[4]^[3] also referred to as Imperial trooper guards and Death Star sentries,^[5]. They were superseded by the more widely-deployed Imperial Navy troopers,^[4]^[6] but similar units were again stationed on the second Death Star and at the associated Endor shield generator bunker.^[2]

Overview[]

Imperial Detension Guard1 — Death Star trooper on the overbridge in a grey-green uniform.

Death Star troopers wore distinctive black uniforms with swooping helmets and long gauntlets.^[1] They were often found in security roles, guarding areas like conference rooms and detention blocks, providing escort for prisoners, or deploying alongside stormtroopers.^[1] Troopers with these responsibilities wore a uniform that was different from the standard Imperial type, with a less structured tunic and trousers and shorter boots, and were generally armed with an E-11 blaster rifle or a DH-17 blaster pistol in a belt holster.^[1]

Others troopers with similar uniforms were found in control rooms associated with the hangar complex, and manning the superlaser, though in these roles they generally combined their distinctive helmet with a jumpsuit like that worn by TIE Pilots, with the Imperial insignia on the shoulder.^[1] There are also a few examples of personnel manning consoles on the overbridge who combine the distinctive black helmet with a grey-green uniform.^[1]

Associated officers generally used the more formal black uniform also associated with commissioned personnel in the Stormtrooper Corps and TIE pilots, sometimes making it hard to be sure exactly what division individuals belonged to,^[1] but there is at least one example of a command role being held by a man who simply wears the looser-fitting trooper uniform with a peaked cap in place of the distinctive helmet.^[1]

Troopers assigned as security guards to the Super Star Destroyer Executor generally switched to the officer's style of uniform without rank insignia,^[6] while those associated with the second Death Star are seen in both this uniform and the jumpsuit, and are associated with both desk and security roles.^[2]

History[]

The Death Star troopers are usually described as a specially trained fighting force created by Grand Moff Tarkin while the battle station was under construction,^[3] combining strict discipline with advanced combat techniques as well as an unusual level of initiative for Imperial personnel,^[3] and forming part of a dedicated corps of the Imperial Navy which was created to crew the battle station.^[3]

However, this account appears to be contradicted by the deployments of Nova Stihl, an Imperial Army sergeant assigned to the Death Star project, who served various duty shifts as a detention-block guard, a security trooper on the door of the Grand Moff's conference room, and a white-armoured stormtrooper.^[7]

In 0 BBY, a pair of Death Star troopers stood guard over the doors of the battle station's main conference room. Others accompanied Darth Vader in Detention Block AA-23, standing guard while Darth Vader interrogated Princess Leia Organa on the location of the Rebel Alliance's base, and then escorted her along with Vader to the overbridge for her confrontation with Grand Moff Tarkin. Troopers in grey-green uniforms manned consoles on the overbridge, while others in black jumpsuits formed part of the superlaser gunnery detail, and, along with officers in black uniforms, crewed control rooms in the hangar complex.

Later, several Death Star troopers were stationed alongside Security officer Shann Childsen in the detention block, when Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, disguised as stormtroopers, arrived with Chewbacca in tow. Skywalker claimed that they were transferring a prisoner from Cell Block 1138, but Childsen, suspicious, ordered two nearby Death Star troopers to investigate. Chewbacca, however, broke free of his handcuffs and Skywalker began firing at the Imperials, killing Childsen and several Death Star troopers. Every Death Star trooper onboard the battlestation during the Battle of Yavin, not long after, was killed when the station exploded.^[1]

After Yavin, similarly-uniformed Imperial Navy troopers became more widely visible in the Imperial fleet,^[4] standing guard prominently on the command deck of the Executor,^[6] but in 4 ABY, Death Star troopers were once again stationed onboard the second Death Star, notably inside the control room, where they operated the battlestation's deflector shield, made transmissions, and, alongside Imperial gunners, operated the superlaser. They were present when Vader arrived to reprimand Moff Tiaan Jerjerrod for his slow progress on the Death Star II's construction; and during the Battle of Endor, where they fired the superlaser at the Alliance Fleet, although the Rebels later managed to deactivate the battlestation's deflector shield and destroy the station, killing everybody onboard.^[2]

Several Death Star troopers were stationed on the Endor moon itself, inside the Death Star's shield generator bunker. They surrendered when the Rebels took control of the bunker during the battle.^[2]

Behind the scenes[]

Although it is not particularly obvious on-screen, the black-uniformed troopers in the original Star Wars film wear a distinctive uniform, combining their wide helmet with a tunic that is looser in cut than the standard Imperial type, paired with unstructured trousers and short boots rising only to mid thigh, rather than the usual jodhpur breeches and knee-high jackboots. Troopers seen manning deflector and superlaser positions substitute a black jumpsuit like TIE Pilots.

The controllers on the overbridge, also implicitly identified in some sources as Death Star troopers, wear the same black helmet with a communications earpiece, and a simplified version of the standard Imperial grey-green uniform, with a narrow lapel fastening over to the left, and straight ankle-length trousers. This probably accounts for the grey uniform of the relevant Kenner action figure, originally designated a "Death Squad Commander", but in subsequent releases as a "Star Destroyer Commander".

Their counterparts in The Empire Strikes Back, in contrast, all appear to combine the distinctive helmet with the black version of the standard Imperial officer's uniform, but without rank insignia; in Return of the Jedi, they wear either this or the black jumpsuit with the shoulder insignia.

The exact status of the Death Star troopers is also rather unclear. The idea that they formed a distinct and unified corps is at least as old as 1989's Imperial Sourcebook, which states that Imperial Navy troopers have adopted "the distinctive uniform and helmet once only the province of the Death star troopers", while 1991's Death Star Technical Companion more explicitly establishes them as a distinctive arm of the Imperial Navy, and clearly distinguishes them from Imperial Army personnel aboard the battle station, but is less clear about their relationship to similarly-uniformed security personnel. As all these sourcebooks are written from a notional in-universe perspective, the information that they contain need not be regarded as entirely accurate.

In contrast, the 2007 Death Star novel describes Death Star troopers in guard roles simply as "stormtroopers in black uniforms" and Sergeant Stihl, identified in the dramatis personae as an "Imperial Marines guard sergeant" and introduced the text as "a trooper in the Imperial Army", does duty in the distinctive uniform as a detention-block guard and a door guard on Tarkin's conference room, and also as a white-armoured stormtrooper. No explicit explanation is offered for the apparent erosion of expected organisational boundaries or for the contradiction with the earlier material.

Adding further to the confusion, while the Imperial Sourcebook implies that the Imperial Navy troopers were only created after the destruction of the first Death Star, the relevant entry in the StarWars.com Databank stated that Death Star troopers were in fact a subgroup drawn "from" the ranks of their pre-existing Navy counterparts.