Sith trooper

History

Origin

Although they were named after the Sith, a sect dedicated to the dark side of the Force, Sith troopers inherited a military legacy that stretched back to the final years of the Galactic Republic. When the Confederacy of Independent Systems expressed its intention to secede from the Republic, the clone troopers of Kamino were organized into the Grand Army of the Republic. At the time of their introduction, these armored infantry units symbolized the future of galactic warfare. They were modeled after the genetic template of Jango Fett, a human [bounty hunter](/article/bounty_hunter], and were intended to be superior to battle droids. Their symbolism was so profound that the galaxy-wide conflict that marked their debut became known as the Clone Wars.

For a period of three years, the Grand Army engaged in battles against the Separatist Droid Army throughout the galaxy. Under the command of the Jedi Knights, an order of peacekeepers united by their belief in the light side of the Force, clone troopers became a symbol of honor and defense, representing hope for the citizens of a war-torn galaxy. However, the clones were unwitting participants in a Sith conspiracy. Darth Sidious, a Sith Lord who amassed political power while disguised as Supreme Chancellor Sheev Palpatine, issued Order 66 during the waning hours of the Clone Wars—calling for the immediate liquidation of the [Jedi Order](/article/jedi_order]. As a result, the clones turned against their [Jedi General](/article/jedi_general], executing them as enemies of the state across various worlds and inside the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. With the clone troopers under his control and the Jedi nearly extinct, Sidious seized absolute power as Emperor of the First Galactic Empire.

The subsequent Imperial Era saw the closure of the Kaminoan cloning facilities overseen by Prime Minister Lama Su. Human volunteers and conscripts replaced clones in all branches of the Imperial Military, including the elite ranks of the stormtroopers. The image of endless legions of white-armored soldiers that once symbolized galactic salvation had transformed into a faceless icon of fascism. However, Commandant Brendol Hux held a less favorable view of the clones' successors. As a veteran of the Clone Wars and an instructor at the Imperial Academy on Arkanis, Hux admired the discipline and combat skills of clone troopers, as well as their Jedi [officers](/article/officer], considering both groups to be superior to the Imperial stormtroopers. Dissatisfied with the caliber of troops in the Imperial Army, Hux conceived the idea of training stormtrooper cadets from [birth](/article/reproduction], believing that a lifetime of military instruction and indoctrination would produce the most exceptional and loyal soldiers.

Within a single generation after the Empire's downfall, the First Order emerged from a remnant of the old regime, establishing a smaller yet disciplined and well armed military. Like the Empire, the First Order appropriated the clone troopers' legacy by creating their own version of white-armored soldiers. Through mass conscription and the training regimen pioneered by Brendol Hux, human younglings were taken from their conquered homeworlds in the Unknown Regions and trained as members of the next generation of stormtroopers. While the Empire opted for numbing routine, the First Order's training simulations and live-fire exercises encouraged improvisation on the battlefield, making their troopers more dangerous than their Imperial predecessors.

The First Order's stormtrooper program continued to evolve after Hux's death, falling under the supervision of his son General Armitage Hux and Captain Phasma, who had collaborated to assassinate the elder Hux. The younger Hux had complete confidence in his father's legacy despite FN-2187's betrayal during the last remaining days of the Cold War. Kylo Ren, the apprentice of Supreme Leader Snoke, believed the deserter's treachery indicated a flaw that was systemic to the entire First Order Army. Having dedicated his life to refining the First Order's training methods, Hux believed the aberrant trooper was an isolated case and therefore rejected the Knight of Ren's suggestion that their master would be better served by an army of clones.

New Sith Empire

Lying in wait

Information within the First Order was highly compartmentalized; even high-ranking First Order officers were unaware of the true scope of their forces. With Ren usurping his master's throne, the veils of secrecy that surrounded Snoke and his plan dissipated, revealing the existence of an invasion fleet developed on the hidden Sith world of Exegol, the Final Order. Having overthrown the New Republic, certain elements within the First Order prepared to deploy a fleet of Xyston-class Star Destroyers along with an army of elite soldiers. The thousands of Sith personnel were raised as the children of the Sith Eternal—cultists devoted to the preservation of the Sith religion—who taught them to revere the power of the dark side.

Many thousands of children on Exegol, the offspring of both members of the Sith Eternal cult and former Imperials, were conscripted into the ranks of the crimson armored soldiers who came to be known as "Sith troopers." Many others had originally been conscripted by the First Order as children, but, due to their potential, spies culled and "disappeared" them, allowing them to become soldiers of the Sith Eternal. The Sith troopers served as the most elite members of the Sith Eternal army. Furthermore, the Sith Eternal learned from the supposed "flaws" of the clone troopers and stormtroopers that had come before; to ensure Sidious's new army was totally obedient, Sith troopers endured extreme amounts of flash-imprinting and mental conditioning, ensuring they would obey every order the Dark Lord of the Sith gave them.

In its ultimate push toward galactic conquest, the First Order readied the army of countless Sith troopers, whose existence was unknown even to most within the regime. While they lied in wait for the time being, they stood ready to wipe away the Resistance. The structure of the Sith Eternal force was analogous to that of the First Order, both having been patterned on an Imperial template. Sith troopers were therefore organized into legions of five-thousand soldiers; at their most basic level were trooper squads consisting of ten soldiers like the stormtrooper squads of the First Order.

However, Sith trooper squads were also divided into a trio or triad of three-trooper fire teams—two corporals and a lance corporal—led by a sergeant. Whereas the variant Sith Jetpack Troopers were organized into their own separate squads, such as the Lanvorak Squad, the Parang Squad and the Warblade Squad, the 105th Battalion was by comprised both Sith infantry units and their jet trooper counterparts. Though Sith troopers resembled the standard troopers of the First Order, their armor and weapons were finished in the striking red colors of the Sith Eternal forces, and were made of denser multi-layered composites providing additional protection from small-arms fire. The crucial difference came in the discipline, ferocity, and loyalty to a resilient cause, which instilled these crimson warriors and their variant counterparts with a fearless aggression.

While they were not imbued with powers derived from the Force, Sith troopers nonetheless derived their name from the dark and ancient legacy of the Sith. Most galactic citizens were unaware that two Sith Lords—Darth Sidious and Darth Vader—occupied positions of power and as such they believed that the Empire's extreme militarization and authoritarian rule stemmed from a desire for security. These measures were in fact fueled by a dark agenda over a thousand years old, culminating in an elaborate contingency designed to ensure the perpetual reign of a Sith Empire, returning the galaxy to a time unseen since the fall of the Old Republic.

Out of the shadows

Reveal to the galaxy

The Sith Eternal, having secretly groomed Ren as heir apparent to the Sith legacy, prepared their forces for his ascension to ultimate power in 35 ABY, believing the grandson of Vader would fulfill the mandate of returning the galaxy to Sith rule. To ensure that there were no remaining Jedi to oppose Ren's claim as heir to the Force, the Supreme Leader was bidden to destroy the Padawan Rey by her grandfather Sidious. Despite his demise at Endor, the phantom Dark Lord of the Sith returned to oversee the final stage of his contingency plans, which would culminate in Ren's reign over the entire galaxy as the new Emperor. To that end, Sidious offered the young dark side warrior control of the Sith Star Destroyers and the fanatically loyal Sith troopers, both of which were crucial to the First Order's transformation into a true Empire.

The discovery of the Sith troopers along with the rest of Exegol's untapped military assets bolstered the Supreme Council's support for Ren's leadership. A secret spy for Palpatine who had been helping establish the coming Sith regime, Allegiant General Enric Pryde was particularly supportive of the alliance between his former Emperor and the Supreme Leader, believing that these additional forces would greatly expand the First Order's range in power, thereby offsetting the disastrous destruction of Starkiller Base. While the Sith Eternal's military forces were created to fight for the First Order, they ultimately remained loyal to Sidious, who threatened to turn them against Ren if he did not succeed in his task to kill Rey.

After recruiting Ren to kill Rey, Sidious completed a history of himself by writing a book entitled The Secrets of the Sith, in which he described his new Sith trooper army. Covering how these stormtroopers were more obedient than his previous armies, Sidious marveled at the rage present in each of the soldiers, pondering if that rage could make them worthy of the name "Sith." Next to his writing, an image of three-armed Sith troopers was present, while a Sith Jetpack Trooper and a Sovereign Protector were pictured in his section on the Sith fleet.

War on Exegol

In the end, Sidious' plans for Ren floundered due to the death of Princess and General Leia Organa, who sacrificed herself in hopes of facilitating her fallen son Ben Solo's return to the light side. Pryde, a former Imperial officer who served the Emperor during the Galactic Civil War, pledged fealty to his once-and-future liege.

Notwithstanding the simmering tension between the First Order's well-regimented military and the Sith Eternal cultists from the Unknown Regions, their alliance was intended to serve as the basis of a new Sith Empire, with the Final Order to enforce Sith rule across the galaxy. At the Emperor's command, a single Xyston-class Star Destroyer, the Derriphan, was deployed to the occupied world of Kijimi; in addition to its standard complement of nearly 30,000 Sith Eternal officers and fleet technicians, the new warship also carried a force of Sith troopers, who were present on the bridge of the ship when its commanding officer, Captain Chesille Sabrond, commanded Kijimi's annihilation with a single shot from her destroyer's axial superlaser cannon.

Despite the Emperor's demonstration of the Sith Eternal's power, the Resistance fleet made a last-ditch attempt to destroy the Sith fleet on Exegol where it was most vulnerable. The Resistance forces faced overwhelming odds in the form of hundreds of warships, guarded by thousands of Sith troopers. The battle of a generation—one that would decide the fate of the galaxy—ensued between the Resistance and the Sith Eternal, during which a contingent of Sith troopers and jet troopers served aboard Allegiant General Pryde's flagship, the Resurgent-class Star Destroyer Steadfast.

The rogue stormtroopers FN-2187 and TZ-1719, together with the Resistance Army's assault team, infiltrated the Steadfast with the goal of incapacitating the command ship before it could guide the Sith Eternal's forces to a secure altitude. An immediate counteroffensive was launched by the Sith troopers, who directly engaged the invading troops on the Steadfast's surface. Although they eliminated a significant number of Resistance troopers during this defense, the Sith troopers suffered heavy casualties, leaving the flagship susceptible to sabotage just as thousands of starships from across the galaxy converged to support the Resistance. Simultaneously, a select group of Sovereign Protectors—the Sith troopers' elite, positioned within the Sith Citadel's amphitheater that housed the Throne of the Sith—were defeated in combat by the combined power of Jedi Rey and Solo.

The destruction of the Steadfast, along with the demise of Pryde and Sidious, left the Sith fleet without leadership, rendering them incapable of protecting their remaining warships. As news of the battle's outcome spread throughout the stars, a galaxy-wide uprising against the First Order began, toppling its remaining forces on planets like Bespin, Jakku, and Endor.

Training

The Sith trooper, a ruthless soldier skilled in rapid movement and advanced weaponry, was engineered to hunt down and annihilate all adversaries of the Sith; they represented the culmination of a project spanning generations and tracing back to the final years of the Galactic Republic. Their predecessors, the clone troopers, underwent training to become the most dedicated and effective soldiers, a process initiated soon after their creation and lasting throughout the first decade of their accelerated lives. However, Darth Sidious was troubled by the unexpected degree of free will displayed by these genetically engineered soldiers, despite numerous modifications to their genetic template. Doctor Nala Se, the Chief Medical Scientist of the Kaminoan government, determined that the Jedi were the reason for this deviation, as they encouraged the clones to behave as individuals rather than thinking as a collective.

Following the Clone Wars, the Galactic Empire dedicated decades to eliminating individuality from its stormtroopers, transforming them into unwavering extensions of Emperor Palpatine's will. Although not clones, stormtroopers exhibited unwavering loyalty to the Empire, yet were considered a lesser class of soldier by both clone and non-clone veterans of the Clone Wars. Similar to their counterparts in the First Order, Sith troopers were born, not cloned. They were naturally born humans, either native to Exegol as offspring of the Sith Eternal cultists or abducted by the First Order as infants; the Sith Eternal ultimately drafted thousands of children. They were young, around their early twenties, and stood at 1.8 meters tall upon completing their training. Like standard stormtroopers in the First Order, Sith troopers were denied individual names, instead being identified by serial numbers such as ST-I4191 and ST-A1215.

To ensure complete obedience, Sith troopers underwent flash-training and loyalty conditioning that built upon and advanced beyond the Kaminoan procedures of previous generations. Consequently, Sith troopers possessed a fanatical devotion to the Sith Eternal and their cause, becoming more obedient and droid-like than the stormtroopers of the First Order, who were trained from childhood. The most skilled soldiers in their ranks were elevated beyond the already elite status of Sith troopers, becoming a distinct class of soldier. Despite the visual similarities between First Order stormtroopers and their Sith Eternal counterparts, the critical distinction lay in the latter's fearless aggression, discipline, ferocity, and unwavering loyalty to the Sith. In close-quarters combat, Sith troopers operated in fire teams of three, trained to fight in a braced firing stance that covered a sixty-degree forward arc.

Raised by cultists to embody the beliefs of the ancient Sith religion, Sith troopers, as children of the Sith Eternal, revered the power of the dark side. Drawing inspiration from the Sith's legacy, each Sith trooper legion adopted the name of an ancient Sith Lord in addition to their numerical designation. For example, the 3rd Legion was named after Revan, the 5th Legion after Andeddu, and the 17th Legion after Darth Tanis. The 26th Legion, the 39th Legion and the 44th Legion were named after Darth Tenebrous, Phobos and Desolous, respectively. Because Sith history was concealed from the rest of the galaxy, only Sith Eternal cultists understood the significance of these otherwise forgotten Lords of the Sith.

Equipment

Armor

Sith trooper armor was constructed from a red gammaplast composite, densely layered four times to create a highly impact-resistant finish, worn over a hermetically sealed black body glove. The faceted, angular design of the face and chest plate was intended to deflect glancing blaster bolts. The helmet's T-shaped visor was reminiscent of the Phase I and Phase II versions used by clone troopers in the past. Beyond this visual nod to the clone soldiers of previous generations, targeting sensors were integrated into the helmet's design, providing Sith troopers with an advantage in conditions of low light or smoke.

Consequently, their helmets continuously transmitted battlefield information, providing Sith trooper officers with a comprehensive overview of combat conditions. A commander's helmet could rapidly calculate the outcomes of various tactics using computer models, which then provided officers with recommendations based on predetermined victory conditions. This information was restricted to the command level to prevent distracting the rank-and-file troopers during combat. Additional technological features included a wireless data antenna and an atmosphere filtration system.

The Sith troopers' right shoulder-mounted sensor telemetry pod emitted active signals programmed to reflect and return, providing accurate environmental data to a command center through encrypted telemetry. The right forearm gauntlet contained a built-in data storage module with an access port, the armor's articulated magnatomic plates allowed for a greater range of movement, and the anisotropic bands increased the surface area for dissipating excess energy from impacts. The corrugated body glove worn beneath the quad-folded gammaplast armor contained an internal atmosphere. The utility belt held power cell ammunition and a detonite explosive charge.

Weapons

The ST-W48 blaster served as the Sith troopers' primary weapon. This heavy rifle incorporated miniaturized technology within space-efficient frames. Mounted beneath the barrel of each rifle were quarrel-bolt launchers, which adapted and updated the Wookiees' bowcaster technology for added explosive force. This resulted in a versatile weapon capable of switching between two modes: blaster rifle and blaster carbine. The ST-W48 was reinforced to reduce recoil and featured a sight-housing and mount for improved accuracy. In carbine mode, the stock was removed for combat in confined spaces.

In addition to the ST-W48, some Sith troopers carried the larger FWMB-10B repeating blaster for increased firepower. Designed by Sonn-Blas Corporation, this repeating blaster included a collapsible monopod for support, a high-resolution electroscope, and a barrel-cooling shroud. Some Sith troopers were also equipped with melee weapons, including a vibro-blade baton held similarly to the Z6 riot control baton used by First Order riot control stormtroopers, and close combat concussion rams.

The SP-B50 blaster rifle was reserved for the Sovereign Protectors, the most elite of the Sith troopers. This ceremonial weapon functioned as both a blaster and a melee weapon.

Specialized Sith troopers

To establish a flexible military force capable of addressing the diverse requirements of battle, specialized troopers underwent training and received equipment to supplement the Sith Eternal's infantry units. Similar to the Sith infantrymen, these variants resembled their counterparts in the First Order, but their armor was painted in the distinctive red colors of the Sith Eternal forces.

• Sith Jetpack Trooper — Highly trained airborne troopers, equipped with advanced gear such as the NJP-900 integrated jetpack and the F-11ABA heavy blaster cannon. [1]
• Sith trooper Sergeant — Troopers trained in command, leading squads of ten known as triads. [1]
• Sovereign Protector — The Sith troopers' elite, elevated to the status of royal guards, stationed within the Sith Citadel on Exegol. [1]

Behind the scenes

Sith troopers were conceived and developed for the 2019 film Star Wars: Episode IX The Rise of Skywalker, the concluding installment of the Star Wars sequel trilogy. Concept artist Glyn Dillon designed them, and Sam Williams sculpted them. Costume designer Michael Kaplan created the Sith trooper costume. Their design was influenced by the death trooper and the Elite Praetorian Guard.