Putting the "K" in "TK"

[FIVE[501st]]

So I've often wondered if anyone knows what the "K" stands for in "TK". We know, obviously, what "TS," "TD," "TB," and all the other identifiers mean... but the "K" in our beloved stormtrooper's TK has always been somewhat of a mystery.

 

Along these lines I asked a friend of mine who is fluent in German if he knew any words that might work for the "K." I thought German was a good language to pick from because 1) they have really cool sounding words... 2) I knew they probably had one that started with a "K"... and 3) so much of the Empire is based on Nazi Germany.

 

He came back, quickly, with quite a few options... and one stood out among the rest...

 

So... may I submit that the "K" in "TK" stands for "Krieger"... the German word for "Warrior."

[Sonnenschein]

So I've often wondered if anyone knows what the "K" stands for in "TK". We know, obviously, what "TS," "TD," "TB," and all the other identifiers mean... but the "K" in our beloved stormtrooper's TK has always been somewhat of a mystery.

 

Along these lines I asked a friend of mine who is fluent in German if he knew any words that might work for the "K." I thought German was a good language to pick from because 1) they have really cool sounding words... 2) I knew they probably had one that started with a "K"... and 3) so much of the Empire is based on Nazi Germany.

 

He came back, quickly, with quite a few options... and one stood out among the rest...

 

So... may I submit that the "K" in "TK" stands for "Krieger"... the German word for "Warrior."

 

The Nazi soldiers in WWII were also called "Sturmtruppen" which is a direct translation of "stormtroopers".

 

Just a thought

 

K.

[FIVE[501st]]

Yeah... that's what I mean. The connections are there anyway... so why not "keep it German?"

[Sonnenschein]

Yeah... that's what I mean. The connections are there anyway... so why not "keep it German?"

 

I guess it would be kind of akward is some say proudly: " Ich bin TruppenKrieger 421"

 

I don't like the idea of TKs being "space Nazis" LOL

 

k.

[TK-7980]

Kaempfer means fighter, doesn't it?

[Sonnenschein]

Kaempfer means fighter, doesn't it?

 

yup. right. I like "Kämpfer" much better.

 

hmm.. maybe the "K" stands for "Karin" ?

 

 

K.

[Ironclaw]

hmm.. maybe the "K" stands for "Karin" ?

 

Or "Kent"

[FIVE[501st]]

Yeah, personally I just like "Trooper Warrior" better... sounds more bad a'.

[Merugear]

Just as fate has it, I checked my german Star Wars board game (Krieg der Sterne) for unseen TK pics and they refer to them as either: Soldat or Sturmtruppen in it.

 

Some people think it comes from Teräs Käsi meaning Iron Fist in Finnish (also the game: Star Wars: Masters of Teräs Käsi)

 

------------

 

Maybe someone named the troops after a toner .

Edited June 26, 2021 by gmrhodes13
link not working, removed gmrhodes13 2021

[Sgt Steve]

Oh good god, the TK was just the guy's "call sign" on the com net! That's all. As in "TK bla bla, why are you not at your post"

[FIVE[501st]]

Maybe someone named the troops after a toner .

Hahaha

[FIVE[501st]]

Oh good god, the TK was just the guy's "call sign" on the com net! That's all. As in "TK bla bla, why are you not at your post"

Exactly.

 

BUT... since we have "TS," "TB," and all the rest now and have made up what those mean, why not MAKE UP what the "K" means? You know... for fun! Like a party! Except online and with people we don't really know.

[Sgt Steve]

Ok how about this. Other then the one time in the DS, buy that uppity "black hat" in the controll room, how often is the word TK used to refer to any other trooper's in any of the other movies.

[FIVE[501st]]

Ok how about this. Other then the one time in the DS, buy that uppity "black hat" in the control room, how often is the word TK used to refer to any other trooper's in any of the other movies.

I don't think ever! <_<

 

So you're asking why does the 501st call stormtroopers "TK" at all? Why don't we just each make up our own call signs... or better yet, have them "given" to us just like in the real military?

 

"Monk, why aren't you at your post?"

 

Now you're getting it!!

[Sgt Steve]

Well yes I can see why! What to call each other. I have no problem with TK. I guess it`s the only real name used for the troopers in the flik that stick`s.

[Dargas[501st]]

the imperial army had millions of Stormtroopers around the galaxy.

 

using designated numbers and letters logic the idea would be that the first stormtrooper,REGARDLESS of his role would be AA-001

 

then would be AA-002 and it goes on an on and on until AA-999, the next line of ids would be AB-001 until it gets to AB-999 and moving to AC-999.... and you can continue the idea until reaching ZZ-999.

 

the TK designation seems to be just a random number for that poor guy in the death star.

 

I, at least don´t remember any other trooper being called by his designation number. Even Han decided to shoot the microphone when asked his operating number.

 

going a bit off topic but to support my vision of the operating number around the Imperial Army:

 

you guys must remember that Vader´s assault on the Tantive 4 was led by the 501st imperial troopers in his charge and after he speaks to leia in the corridor a COMMANDER in oficial black uniform reports to Vader about the computer being empty and the escape pods and please pay attention to this line by Lord Vader:

 

"She must have hidden the plans into the escape pods, send a detachment down to retrieve it, SEE TO IT PERSONALLY COMMANDER there´ll be no one to stop us this time"

 

to which the uniformed Commander replies with a strict "Yes Sir!".

 

according to this line that same blond commander went down with what we previously saw as Regular Stormtroopers to the Tattooine planet surface looking for the Escape Pods in what I´ve always thought to be their own stormtrooper armor but adjusted for desert terrain fashion and, according to the now accepted special edition, squads of Heavy Weapons Troopers. If this commander did not went down to Personally direct the search as Vader asked him he mist have left in the Star destroyer and i don{t really think a commander would disobey a direct order from Lord Vader.

 

we may even assume that the Commander that's speaking the lines "someone was in the pods... the tracks go off in this direction" may be talking to the same blonde stormtrooper commander that was given the assignment of finding the pods by Lord Vader.

 

so... in my own understanding of the Imperial Military all white armor like soldiers are infantry with, of course, different tasks within their units, these including the Regular Stormtroopers as Infantry, Heavy Weapons Troopers as Heavy Infantry, scouts as exactly that and Shadow Troopers, Dark Troopers, Imperial Commandos are special Operations while TIE Pilots are the air-force and the rest are Mechanized Cavalry.

 

at least that´s how it plays in my head!

[FIVE[501st]]

the imperial army had millions of Stormtroopers around the galaxy.

 

using designated numbers and letters logic the idea would be that the first stormtrooper,REGARDLESS of his role would be AA-001

 

... and some more good stuff...

 

at least that´s how it plays in my head!

 

I like it!

[Gypsyboy]

The Nazi soldiers in WWII were also called "Sturmtruppen" which is a direct translation of "stormtroopers".

 

Just a thought

 

K.

 

I don't mean to be nitpicky, or to sound like a doof, but I think "stormtrooper" is a translation of "sturmtruppen"... the other way round from the way you had it. Yeah, yeah, ever'buddy thumb their noses at Gypsyboy now.

[Dargas[501st]]

Thanks Noel!

 

I´ve been waiting for the chance to expose that thesis for years!

[Sonnenschein]

I don't mean to be nitpicky, or to sound like a doof, but I think "stormtrooper" is a translation of "sturmtruppen"... the other way round from the way you had it. Yeah, yeah, ever'buddy thumb their noses at Gypsyboy now.

 

hmmm... That is what I said, didn't I? Sturmtruppen was first...

 

K

[Sgt Steve]

the imperial army had millions of Stormtroopers around the galaxy.

 

using designated numbers and letters logic the idea would be that the first stormtrooper,REGARDLESS of his role would be AA-001

 

then would be AA-002 and it goes on an on and on until AA-999, the next line of ids would be AB-001 until it gets to AB-999 and moving to AC-999.... and you can continue the idea until reaching ZZ-999.

 

the TK designation seems to be just a random number for that poor guy in the death star.

 

I, at least don´t remember any other trooper being called by his designation number. Even Han decided to shoot the microphone when asked his operating number.

 

going a bit off topic but to support my vision of the operating number around the Imperial Army:

 

you guys must remember that Vader´s assault on the Tantive 4 was led by the 501st imperial troopers in his charge and after he speaks to leia in the corridor a COMMANDER in oficial black uniform reports to Vader about the computer being empty and the escape pods and please pay attention to this line by Lord Vader:

 

"She must have hidden the plans into the escape pods, send a detachment down to retrieve it, SEE TO IT PERSONALLY COMMANDER there´ll be no one to stop us this time"

 

to which the uniformed Commander replies with a strict "Yes Sir!".

 

according to this line that same blond commander went down with what we previously saw as Regular Stormtroopers to the Tattooine planet surface looking for the Escape Pods in what I´ve always thought to be their own stormtrooper armor but adjusted for desert terrain fashion and, according to the now accepted special edition, squads of Heavy Weapons Troopers. If this commander did not went down to Personally direct the search as Vader asked him he mist have left in the Star destroyer and i don{t really think a commander would disobey a direct order from Lord Vader.

 

we may even assume that the Commander that's speaking the lines "someone was in the pods... the tracks go off in this direction" may be talking to the same blonde stormtrooper commander that was given the assignment of finding the pods by Lord Vader.

 

so... in my own understanding of the Imperial Military all white armor like soldiers are infantry with, of course, different tasks within their units, these including the Regular Stormtroopers as Infantry, Heavy Weapons Troopers as Heavy Infantry, scouts as exactly that and Shadow Troopers, Dark Troopers, Imperial Commandos are special Operations while TIE Pilots are the air-force and the rest are Mechanized Cavalry.

 

at least that´s how it plays in my head!

Exactly! It was just his call sign, and that's it. So the 501st could use say..ST.. for it's members and still be canon. ST as StormTrooper, like CT CloneTrooper ect....but I won't stir any pot over it

[FIVE[501st]]

..but I won't stir any pot over it

Too late.

[Peregrinus]

Depends on how "EU" you want to get. We've gotten prefixes for a lot of Stormtroopers and pilots, thanks to the card games and such. There are other matters, too...

 

From the Beginning™:

 

Current EU fluff says the 501st is the only Stormtrooper Legion still composed entirely of Jango clone-stock. Therefore, the troopers assaulting the Tantive IV weren't 501st. Praji and Jir are most definitely not Kiwis. The card game gives several of those Stormtroopers the prefix "DV". I posited that the two-letter prefix is a lot like the state abbreviations here in the U.S. -- a two-letter code indicating, in this case, the garrison/base for that unit. "DV" I assign to the star destroyer they were aboard -- the Devastator. "TK", in my thesis, is Tarkin's personal garrison that he brought with him to help fill the Death Star's ranks.

 

Two of the pilot callsign prefixes I've seen are "DS" for the Death Star pilots and "EX" for the Executor pilots. I imagine those same prefixes, with the usual 'trooper number pattern after (instead of the differently-configured pilot numbers), would be applied to the 'troopers assigned specifically to the Death Star and Executor. And that the Executor's garrison is the 501st, under the overall command of General Veers (whatever other regular Army forces and Generals are aboard, Veers is in command of the Stormtroopers).

 

This is all regardless of terrain- or environment-specific gear. With the exception of highly-trained corps of Stormtroopers who are in high demand throughout the Empire, most Stormtroopers are cross-trained to operate in a variety of environments and conditions, and have appropriate gear to assist with that. The same troops we saw storming the Rebel Base on Hoth, in cold-weather gear, might be the same troops who locked down Cloud City, in standard kit.

 

I personally don't believe there's a company of desert-terrain Stormtroopers sitting on their butts in the bowels of their star destroyer just in case they run across a desert planet.

 

So, by extension of all of this, everyone in the 501st should have an EX prefix (or it's pre-Executor predacessor), mostly regardless of costume. I think, since that isn't the case, that we should all come up with costume-specific and appropriate callsigns that fit some in-universe system, and the 501st ID we get is just an internal thing for club record-keeping.

 

I've been pondering the problem looming of too many members for the 10,000 slots available in the current scheme. Thanks to the prequel-era EU stuff, we've seen longer ID numbers, of which the familiar four-digit number is the last four. The scheme there is "CC-xx/xx-xxxx". We can speculate to our hearts' content on what it all signifies, but that would free up a lot more slots, if adopted. And if we reverse the order, with the usual "TB", "TX", whatever, coming last, almost like degrees if we have multiple costumes. *heh*

 

Long-winded way of saying, for me, "TK" is an abbreviation denoting Governor Tarkin's personal garrison.

 

--Jonah

[FIVE[501st]]

Wow...

 

Can I post this over on my facebook note Jonah?

[Dargas[501st]]

This is all regardless of terrain- or environment-specific gear. With the exception of highly-trained corps of Stormtroopers who are in high demand throughout the Empire, most Stormtroopers are cross-trained to operate in a variety of environments and conditions, and have appropriate gear to assist with that. The same troops we saw storming the Rebel Base on Hoth, in cold-weather gear, might be the same troops who locked down Cloud City, in standard kit.

 

Jonah, according to the cannon, the troopers that went with Darth Vader in all his attacks where 501st troopers. The Elite unit given to him by The Emperor. Thus the troopers assaulting the Tantive IV are in fact 501st.

 

the same is on Hoth, the attacking units are all 501st and are the Stormtroopers in charge of Darth Vader.

 

General Veers is not a clone trooper however he is in charge of the ground assault.

 

the troopers that assaulted Cloud City are also 501st as are the ones that assaulted the Massassi Temple on Yavin and Admiral Dodonna. the ones in cloud city had non clone commanders assigned to them.

 

basically every time we see the stormtroopers squash the baddies, those troopers are 501st. when Darth Vader is in command. This is proven and accepted fact.

 

 

just to clarify, the ones on Endor are not 501st, the are the emperor´s shock troopers and he effectively states in his line "an entire Legion of my best troops awaits them" and let´s remember that his personal clones where the red stripped Coruscanti Shocktroopers. These, as well as Vader s 501st swapped colors for curgical white when the Empire was young but retained their status as Elites as The emperor and Vaders personal Troops however despite of their status, the Emperor´s Shocktroopers did not have the experience of fighting in countles battles in the field like Vader´s 501st legion did.