Dark Trooper project

The experimental Phase II Dark Trooper was evaluated by the Imperial Military during the Galactic Civil War. By the third generation of the dark trooper, it was decided that 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 around the year 9 ABY. IDMR scientists were stationed aboard Gideon's light cruiser to maintain these dark troopers, which were held in cold storage due to their excessive power requirements.

Models developed under the Dark Trooper program were:

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. It made its first appearance in "Chapter 12: The Siege," the twelfth episode of The Mandalorian. It was originally created for the 1995 Star Wars Legends video game Star Wars: Dark Forces.

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. However, most canon sources have framed the dark trooper program as starting with combat suits and only later shifting to create combat droids.