Star Wars: The Mandalorian Debuts A New Kind of Dark Trooper

Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito) is up to no good, but chances are you already knew that. As evident throughout the entire first season of The Mandalorian, the latest Star Wars baddie is doing whatever he can to get his hands on The Child. Now, we know why. As many suspected the first go-around, the Imperial officer is dabbling in genetic experimentation, and the cosmos may have a much larger problem on their hands than originally thought.

Full spoilers up ahead for “The Siege,” the latest episode of The Mandalorian. Proceed with caution if you’ve yet to see the episode!

Much like the episode prior, fans of the series didn’t get a good look at Gideon until the episode’s closing moments. At least this time around, however, the Moff was seen in the flesh on his fancy new command ship, which looks to be a modified Arquitens-class cruiser. There, he was seen observing a new set of new soldiers of some kind, which appear to be a live-action take on Dark Troopers.

Dark Troopers first popped up in Star Wars: Dark Forces, the shooter game developed by LucasArts back in the mid-1990s. Afterward, the group appeared in a few of the Star Wars Tales comics published by Dark Horse Comics a few years after the fact. In the Legends lore, the Dark Trooper Project was something ordered by Sheev Palpatine himself in order to get the Empire the next best weapon — a soldier more reliable than Stormertroopers or regular old Battle Droids.

A pet project of General Rom Mohc’s, the Dark Troopers were developed in three phases, each with a different skillset or arsenal. As with most things from the Empire, the project eventually fell flat on its face and Palpatine pulled funding from the project.

Of course, that’s all Legends material so it could change on-screen by the time the plot fleshes itself out. We do know, however, Gideon is working on something major, and the soldiers — or androids, for that matter — are in a stasis of sorts.

In the scene in question, you can also see an Imperial worker with a similar uniform to that of the scientists on the Death Star, with a teal chest and back area in contrast to a white jumpsuit. Here, however, the typical Death Star logo isn’t seen. Rather, a logo from the Imperial Department of Military Research can be seen.

Again, the IDMR is another Legends property with some major connections to the aforementioned Mohc, another clear indicator Jon Favreau and company and choosing to adapt more of the Legends story for in-continuity canon.

New episodes of The Mandalorian are added to Disney+ every Friday.

What other characters or items would you like pulled into live-action from the Star Wars Legends lore? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section!