What does the "K" in TK stands for?

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Gordonator
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Joined: Fri Oct 17, 2008 9:01 pm

What does the "K" in TK stands for?

Post by Gordonator » Fri May 28, 2010 8:17 pm

In the 501st Legion, every costume type is given a 2 letter identifier. For example Stormtrooper = TK, Sandtrooper = TD, Biker Scout = TB, TIE Fighter pilot = TI, Snowtrooper = TS, Clone Trooper = TC and so on.

But have you wondered what does the letters stand for? T is for Trooper obviously. TD = Trooper Deployed or Dirty (unofficial), TI is the abbreviation of TIE, TB = Trooper Biker, TS = Trooper Snow, TC = Trooper Clone.

How about TK? It was used in the movie but it was never officially explained what the "K" stands for.
"TK-421, why aren't you at your post? TK-421, do you copy?"
―Imperial officer Pol Treidum

http://www.moviewavs.com/php/sounds/?id ... =tk421.wav
So our beloved Legion Founder, Mr Albin Johnson gave us his take on the possible meaning of the "K" when I brought up the question to him. :)
Aldin Johnson wrote:Gordon - I get that question a lot. My personal take on it is that the stormtroopers were the original trooper (obviously, from the clones, but still the main arm of the military) and hence formed the central Corps of the Imperial forces. Armies always form around their infantry, after all. In the Star Wars universe you see a lot of parallels with our world's military history - their units are named like those of the Roman Legion, the term "stormtrooper" comes from WWII. So when referring to the troopers I think of them in the German term "Korps" and hence the "K". Not to draw too close a parallel, but it was already there - Lucas obviously was creating a 'bad guy' army similar to what he learned about from WWII. So the short answer is TK = Trooper Korps. The abbreviations for the other specialties stemmed from this central Korps, so most of them retain the "T". In the history of the Empire, I'm sure the "TC" for clones came about retroactively to distinguish a period when troopers were exclusively clones. Judging from the material in the books and other sources, troopers were still being cloned in the original trilogy time period but were also being supplemented with recruiting efforts. I'm sure there are authors who could explain it better, but I've always thought the "TC" was a bit of a throwback term - you heard Luke ask Ben in ANH about the "Clone Wars" - who would refer to them like that unless that was a bit anachronistic? So "Trooper" became the default term and their Korps the backbone of the army. I remember there was one novel following ROTJ where they were eagerly looking for the Emperor's old trooper spawning facility b/c the Empire was so depleted and they desperately needed more shock troops. That just underscores how central the trooper was to the Empire. Korps all the way, baby!

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