"TK" Designations for First Order Troopers

[Jayben Kenobi[501st]]

Hello First Order enthusiasts!

 

I had a quick question about the TK designation for First Order Troopers. In the film, The Force Awakens, the traitor FN-2187, given two letters at the beginning of his trooper ID number. Apparently, there were a number of other troopers in Captain Phasma's  FN Training Corp that were also given the "FN" designation. In the newly released book "Phasma" the FO troopers also have letters at the beginning of the trooper ID number. Does the 501st plan to adopt this policy for First Order Troopers so that all of the First Order troopers don't start off with "TK" or does the 501st plan just to stick with the "TK" designation for the White Armor Stormtroopers? I'm fine either way, but I figured I would ask.

[Locitus[Admin]]

The same thing has been up a number of times, and was also up after EP7. It hasn't changed since, so it's unlikely to change this time either.

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

There has been some very lengthy debates and the end result was "no it's not going to change it will stay TK"

[JAFO[TK]]

Hello First Order enthusiasts!
 
I had a quick question about the TK designation for First Order Troopers. In the film, The Force Awakens, the traitor FN-2187, given two letters at the beginning of his trooper ID number. Apparently, there were a number of other troopers in Captain Phasma's  FN Training Corp that were also given the "FN" designation. In the newly released book "Phasma" the FO troopers also have letters at the beginning of the trooper ID number. Does the 501st plan to adopt this policy for First Order Troopers so that all of the First Order troopers don't start off with "TK" or does the 501st plan just to stick with the "TK" designation for the White Armor Stormtroopers? I'm fine either way, but I figured I would ask.

To quote a classic Fawlty Towers episode....”Don’t mention the war!!!”


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[Daetrin[Admin]]

It's important to remember that costume designators are really more of a costume grouping and are only created when there is a gap.  For instance BH is Bounty Hunters, and even though Mandalorian Warriors aren't bounty hunters, since the armor is the same they all end up getting a BH anyway.

 

In earlier days of the Legion it was easier to get new costume designators created, but it became abused (RP anyone?) and now the bar is really high.

 

Lastly, the books are written by people who just make stuff up.  Look at TK-421.  Probably more than 1000 stormtroopers in the Legion, so they can't all be TK-something.  Finn is FN and the presumption is that the two letter designator is more a unit designator.  If we really followed the books, people could in theory just make up whatever two letter designator they wanted and still be a stormtrooper.  While this makes interesting fiction, it's too unwieldy for a real-world costuming club.

 

 

[camprandall]

"TK, huh? Tick. I'm gonna call you Tick! That all right?"

[Daetrin[Admin]]

6 hours ago, camprandall said:

"TK, huh? Tick. I'm gonna call you Tick! That all right?"

OMG - LOL.  Bet that's how it started.  "Crap, we can't call our lead male Tick."  

[tkrestonva[TK]]

Yeah, if you follow the books (and even the movie) the First Order Stormtrooper prefixes are all over the place. While the preponderance of them are FN, you also see FO, TK, JB, and others that I'm not remembering right now depending on which unit they were assigned to. For consistency's sake and to allow for smoother management at the Legion level, best to stick with a single prefix. Since we are stormtroopers, "TK" seems to work the best and it makes clear that we are part of the FISD.

[First0rder[TK]]

What happens when you already used your TK ID for an OT then build a FO?  your ID stays TKXXXX for both suits?  i guess so.

[Daetrin[Admin]]

1 minute ago, First0rder said:

What happens when you already used your TK ID for an OT then build a FO?  your ID stays TKXXXX for both suits?  i guess so.

Correct.  Your "number", e.g. 19736 stays the same forever. If you do a biker scout, it just means than you can use either TK-19736 or TB-19736.  The two letter prefix is just a costume category identifier.  FWIW, there is not a 1:1 correlation betwixt detachments and costume designators.  For instance SL (Sith lord) is covered by both the SLD & FE detachments.  IOC covers ID, IC, and IN.

 

For awhile FISD covered both TK and TD, as HWT was under the TD costume designation originally.

 

The reason why your Legion ID and TKID are different is because in the early days TKIDs were recycled, e.g. if I left the Legion, then someone new could also be TK-8020.  They don't do that anymore, but is why there is a need for both.

[First0rder[TK]]

Thanks a mill Paul.  Great info. 

[Peregrinus]

Club designation and in-universe usage are separate things, as Paul said. As far as in-universe reasoning goes, the preponderance of material indicated the prefix is an indicator of posting. The troops boarding the Tantive IV in ANH have a DV prefix for the ship they're posted to -- Devastator. The pilots flanking Vader in repelling the Rebel fighters' runs on the exhaust port had DS prefixes, for Death Star. TK-421 is likely part of Tarkin's personal garrison, brought with him when he transferred his flag to the station. And in TFA, the FN prefix indicates troopers assigned to the Finalizer. I would go so far as to assert the other prefixes in that film and in the Phasma novel are an indicator of other garrison/shipboard postings those trainees are intended for. I like the idea that there's another Resurgent-class star destroyer named Tarkin out there in First Order space, and that's where those couple TK troopers were deployed from. Not sure if the Starkiller had its own garrison yet, or if those mustered troops were down from the Finalizer (Phasma was up there on the podium, after all).

 

But one's Legion ID number has nothing to do with any of this -- unless one feels like being creative. 

[Daetrin[Admin]]

On ‎11‎/‎25‎/‎2017 at 11:57 PM, Peregrinus said:

Club designation and in-universe usage are separate things, as Paul said. As far as in-universe reasoning goes, the preponderance of material indicated the prefix is an indicator of posting. The troops boarding the Tantive IV in ANH have a DV prefix for the ship they're posted to -- Devastator. The pilots flanking Vader in repelling the Rebel fighters' runs on the exhaust port had DS prefixes, for Death Star. TK-421 is likely part of Tarkin's personal garrison, brought with him when he transferred his flag to the station. And in TFA, the FN prefix indicates troopers assigned to the Finalizer. I would go so far as to assert the other prefixes in that film and in the Phasma novel are an indicator of other garrison/shipboard postings those trainees are intended for. I like the idea that there's another Resurgent-class star destroyer named Tarkin out there in First Order space, and that's where those couple TK troopers were deployed from. Not sure if the Starkiller had its own garrison yet, or if those mustered troops were down from the Finalizer (Phasma was up there on the podium, after all).

 

But one's Legion ID number has nothing to do with any of this -- unless one feels like being creative. 

This is the most realistic, likely explanation I've read in 40 years regarding this subject.

[tkrestonva[TK]]

On ‎11‎/‎26‎/‎2017 at 2:57 AM, Peregrinus said:

Club designation and in-universe usage are separate things, as Paul said. As far as in-universe reasoning goes, the preponderance of material indicated the prefix is an indicator of posting. The troops boarding the Tantive IV in ANH have a DV prefix for the ship they're posted to -- Devastator. The pilots flanking Vader in repelling the Rebel fighters' runs on the exhaust port had DS prefixes, for Death Star. TK-421 is likely part of Tarkin's personal garrison, brought with him when he transferred his flag to the station. And in TFA, the FN prefix indicates troopers assigned to the Finalizer. I would go so far as to assert the other prefixes in that film and in the Phasma novel are an indicator of other garrison/shipboard postings those trainees are intended for. I like the idea that there's another Resurgent-class star destroyer named Tarkin out there in First Order space, and that's where those couple TK troopers were deployed from. Not sure if the Starkiller had its own garrison yet, or if those mustered troops were down from the Finalizer (Phasma was up there on the podium, after all).

 

But one's Legion ID number has nothing to do with any of this -- unless one feels like being creative. 

Interesting. Makes sense, too. Do you have any sources for the DV and DS prefixes, or is it simply based on reasoning?

[Peregrinus]

It's one of those annoying Heisenbergian things from the EU -- not canon until it is, but everything in the EU prior to ROTJ is still tacitly "in" unless and until it's overwritten. Just don't put too much stock in anything.

 

Back in the early '90s, Decipher had to come up with a bunch of stuff for the card game. That's where we get a whole lot of the names and ranks of various Rebels and Imperials and denizens. Everything had to be approved by Lucasfilm (for what that's worth, then and now), and most got propagated down through the later EU. Wizards of the Coast continued this when they got the RPG/CCG license in 2000. Between those we got (chronologically within the films) the following (non-TK) troopers:

 

ANH

DV-523 -- one of the first through the Tantive IV's breached airlock.

DV-692 -- "Mr. No Stripes", aka "Inform Lord Vader we have a prisoner."

 

...And the following pilots/craft:

 

ANH

DS-73-3 -- The patrol ship the Falcon ran into.

DS-3-12 -- The TIE chasing Luke that Wedge took out.

DS-29-4

DS-55-2

DS-55-6

DS-61-2 -- Black 2. "Mauler Mithel". Vader's left wingman in the trench run.

DS-61-3 -- Black 3. "Backstabber". Vader's right wingman.

DS-61-4 -- Black 4. "Dark Curse".

DS-61-9

DS-73-5

 

TESB

[Stationed on the Executor]

EX-1-2 (Bomber)

EX-1-8 (Bomber)

EX-4-9

[Rotational squadron stationed on the Thunderflare during Empire]

OS-72-1 -- Obsidian 1.

OS-72-2 -- Obsidian 2.

OS-72-8

OS-72-10 -- Obsidian 10.

 

ROTJ

DS-181-3 -- Saber 3. Baron Fel's wingman. (Interceptor)

DS-181-4 -- Major Phennir's wingman. (Interceptor)

 

Brace for a mini-essay...

 

I try to base as much of my informed conjecture on first sources as possible. The original, non-SE film is the baseline from which everything else is either derived, or deviated from. I've reached some conclusions that clash with more recent official assumptions, but better fit the observed phenomena. Like... The difference in rank insignia between ANH and TESB. Motti is listed in the credits as General Motti. Not sure when and where "Admiral" first got hung on him (I can run that down easily enough, but not right now), but General fits better, for many reasons. The Prequels establish the clonetroopers have commissioned officers, but no higher than the apparently-granular "Commander". Their Generals are non-clone officers. This supports what we first saw in TESB with Veers.

 

The Imperial military is a combined service (though in ANH we only see the inside of an Imperial Army installation), with identical uniforms between the ship and ground forces, and the observed evidence of the rank insignia gives us a nice distinguishing feature to separate the two. Motti is the facility commandant (answering to Tarkin). Bast is seen directing Stormtroopers and gunnery crews, so is likely some flavor of General, like Veers. He sits with Tagge at the briefing, the two of them as far across the table from Motti as they can. All three are probably Generals, but Motti sneers at Tagge's concerns, referring to "your Starfleet". So Tagge was probably the General commanding the Stormtroopers embarked aboard the Devastator and, like Veers, Navy-style rank insignia while aboard ship, for ease of identification by Naval officers.

 

Army rank insignia are a single row of some permutation of one through six blue, red, and/or amber chips. There's potentially a lot of information being conveyed by color, number, and placement. The Navy ranks, on the other hand, are geared for ease and speed of comprehension in the often-entirely-too-chaotic atmosphere of ship combat. Two rows, red over blue, and one can tell at a glance if one is encountering someone recently graduated (one pair), in the Lieutenant grades (two pairs), command grades (three pairs), or low, medium, or high level flag ranks (four, five, and six pairs, respectively). When you have a second to think, you can determine more finely who is senior to whom within that block. I theorize that four pairs is specifically for embarked Stormtrooper Generals, the Stormtrooper Corps being roughly analogous to the real-world Marines, being tacitly part of the naval forces. They serve the same role -- embarked troops and military base security (in both battle armor and garrison uniform -- a whole other can of worms I won't get into now).

 

So, based on the unit sizes in the Grand Army shown on the mustering yard at the end of AOTC, and presuming unit sizes remain at least roughly the same over the next couple decades...

 

 

13-man squads, 2 squads per platoon (26). This is each file shown above. 6 platoons per company (156), 4 companies per battalion (624). This is each discrete block of troops, 24 files across. 5 battalions per legion (3,120), 3 legions per division (9,360). This is the larger array bordered by the access lanes. 3 divisions per corps (28,080), because that's a unit size given in the ancillary materials. Bigger than that, though, the Prequel stuff didn't give us.

 

All that number crunching to surmise limits. Do we presume three-digit numbers where only three digits are given? We have four-digit TK Stormtroopers elsewhere in the newer material. Did TK-421 just omit the initial zero? That would give us up to ten thousand potential within a given prefix. Conveniently, a division -- at these numbers -- is enough shy of that mark to make things non-problematic. On the other hand, five digits gives us potentially up to a hundred thousand under a single prefix, so it could be a corps designator. Or it could be a flexible thing, applied to whatever discrete unit is posted to a particular ship or facility. Tarkin could just have a legion. Or each prefix could be presumed to have as big a block of numbers available as needed, that are unique to each trooper assigned to that posting over the years, the numbers getting higher as older troopers die or retire. Maybe there's another number hyphenated between the prefix and the individual identifier, like with the pilots, that gets left out for most day-to-day address. That would be the legion number (up to 9 legions in a corps, and legions just sound like a convenient "biggest standard unit").

 

In the case of the pilots, the prefix is the group identifier, the number in the middle is the wing number, the last number is the individual identifier. The EU gave us a structure where they follow the British/Commonwealth model of 3 squadrons per wing. The squadrons just have names, where applicable, for the pilots' callsigns. Where no squadron is designated, they go by the group name (see Obsidian, above).

 

Me, I'm doing a Bridge Crew uniform just to get the IC tag, because the persona I've created for my non-face-character Stormtrooper costuming is posted to Imperial Center. Even in armor or Stormtrooper garrison uniform or Royal Guard robes, I'll refer to myself as "IC-whatever-whatever". This is a case where there is conveniently a club costume identifier tag that works for what I want. YMMV.

 

--Jonah

Edited November 28, 2017 by Peregrinus

[TheDon[501st]]

-claps hands-

 

that is some well thought out reasoning. 

[First0rder[TK]]

10 hours ago, TheDon said:

-claps hands-

 

that is some well thought out reasoning. 

I agree with Joe!  Nice Write up!!! 

[Big Deal]

 

Wow. Very well thought out.

[Harbinger[IPM]]

That seems too logical to not be the case.

Edited November 28, 2017 by Harbinger

[Peregrinus]

I may or may not have spent too much time thinking about this over the years...  Some things are fairly easy to solve, like "black uniform means Stormtrooper (generally)" or "so-called 'Rebel Fleet Troopers' are Imperial Senate Guards' garrison uniforms", etc. Other things resist easy solutions, like the Imperial rank badges in ROTJ, or George's fondness for the word "group" making a hash of any attempt to figure things out: "Red Group, this is Red Leader"... "Keep half your group out of range"... "Groups seven and ten" will stay behind to fly the airspeeders of "Rogue Group"... "All groups assume attack coordinates"... "Green Group, stick close to holding sector"... "Red Group, Gold Group -- all fighters follow me"... To say nothing of how many times the word appears in George's narrative slugs in the scripts.