Star Wars is the catch-all banner for an intergalactic conflict between several factions of humanoid aliens and robots engaged in a galactic war.
Known factions include Bounty Hunters, Empire, Jedi, Rebel, Republic, Separatist, and Sith.
Battle mechs
Many "star warriors" fight using Transformer-like battle mecha that change from vehicles to large combat robots. These mecha are piloted from within and are not sapient beings like true Cybertronian Transformers. The pilots trigger their vehicle's transformation by summoning something called "The Force" or "the dark side". The nature of this mechanism is unclear, but we do know that vehicle-to-robot conversions are a "new technology" for them.
Rather unique to this conflict, many of the key figures in these Star Wars pilot clearly customized mecha whose robot modes are based closely on their own physical appearance. Based on the possible size of the star warriors relative to the average Transformer (see below), their transforming ships may be on a scale with massive city-bots like Fortress Maximus.
Size matters not?
Perhaps similar to the inhabitants of Femax, these fearsome beings, though in many cases strikingly human-like, might be of a gigantic stature, equaling the size of many Transformers. Rare images of star warriors battling against Transformers from the Unicron Trilogy have been uncovered, though the context is unclear. It has also been speculated that perhaps the Transformers themselves had been somehow reduced in stature for this conflict, or the star warriors' size similarly increased from their normal standard, but without further context, it is impossible to determine which holds true.
Fiction
Generation One
A pair of mechanoids similar to two droids that are known participants in the Star Wars have been seen in a Generation One universe at the Schaeffer Energy plant, suggesting either dimensional travel, or the existence of alternate universe analogues of at least some of the star warriors, or bloody amazing coincidence (actual scientific term). Since these droids only appear in the far foreground of a scene containing a human child, Micromasters, and Star Saber behind them, it is impossible to determine their heights.
At around the same time, Star Saber travelled to the settlement of Iron Town on an unnamed planet. The population there included the Ewok and Jawa alien species involved in the Star Wars.
The tall golden droid (or robots that resemble him) has also been seen in another Generation One universe. One was a citizen of the Dead End of Cybertron, its appearance (and poor state of repair) recorded for posterity as Scrounge rolled through on one of his spy missions. It also bears a striking resemblance to the Chromite mechanical aliens.
Unicron Trilogy
Indications are that the star warriors are native to a galaxy within the Unicron Trilogy family. In the Attacktix conflict, they are in an "Intergalactic Showdown" with Omega Sentinel and those continuities' then-current versions of Optimus Prime and Megatron. Given the name of their encounter and the lack of any scrap of a reference to travel between universes, Occam's razor indicates we should assume that these characters are from another galaxy in the same universe. Since a galaxy outside the Milky Way is by definition far, far away from Cybertron, Earth, and other planets local to the Transformers, encounters with the star warriors being an extreme rarity is no surprise.
Hopefully some day more information on this conflict and its other participants may come to light, though the inclusion of numerous Generation One and Movie multiverse Transformers in the conflict casts an odd light on the issue.
Movie
In the Sector Seven game universe within the Movie continuity family, Seymour Simmons and John Ho attended the premiere of the film Star Wars at Grauman's Chinese Theater on May 25, 1977. This is the same universe in which the film Transformers (July 4, 2007) is part of a counter-intelligence campaign by Simmons' Sector Seven organization to discredit claims of the existence of alien robots. Make of that what you will.
Toys
Attacktix
Intergalactic Showdown (Multi-pack, 2006)
- AT-RT with Clone Pilot
- Darth Vader
- Luke Skywalker
Crossovers/Star Wars Transformers
Bounty Hunters
- Boba Fett / Slave 1 | 2006
- Jango Fett / Slave 1 {redeco of Boba Fett) | 2007
Galactic Empire
- AT-AT Driver / AT-AT | 2007
- Darth Vader / TIE Advanced Fighter | 2006
- Darth Vader / TIE Advanced Fighter (2-pack light-gray repaint) | 2007
- Darth Vader / Sith Starfighter (remolded redeco of Obi-Wan Kenobi) | 2006
- Darth Vader / Death Star | 2007
- Emperor Palpatine / Imperial Shuttle | 2006
- Emperor Palpatine / Imperial Shuttle (black deco) | 2009
- TIE Pilot / TIE Bomber | 2008
Jedi Order
- Anakin Skywalker / Jedi Starfighter (remolded redeco of Obi-Wan Kenobi) | 2006
- Anakin Skywalker / Jedi Starfighter (remolded redeco of Saesee Tiin) | 2009
- Mace Windu / Jedi Starfighter (remolded redeco of Obi-Wan Kenobi) | 2007
- Obi-Wan Kenobi / Jedi Starfighter (Episode III model) | 2006
- Obi-Wan Kenobi / Jedi Starfighter (2-pack blue repaint) | 2007
- Obi-Wan Kenobi / Jedi Starfighter (remolded redeco of Saesee Tiin) | 2008
- Saesee Tiin / Jedi Starfighter (Episode II model) | 2007
Rebel Alliance
- Han Solo and Chewbacca / Millennium Falcon (combiner) | 2007
- Luke Skywalker / X-wing Fighter | 2006
- Luke Skywalker / Snowspeeder | 2007
Galactic Republic
- Clone Pilot / ARC-170 Starfighter | 2006
- Clone ARC Pilot / ARC-170 Starfighter (tigershark redeco) | 2006
- Clone Pilot / Republic Gunship | 2007
- Clone ARC Pilot / Republic Gunship (tigershark redeco) | 2008
- Clone Pilot / V-19 Torrent | 2009
- Commander Cody / Turbo Tank | 2007
Confederacy of Independent Systems
- General Grievous / Wheel Bike | 2006
- General Grievous / Grievous's Starfighter | 2008
Sith Order
- Darth Maul / Sith Infiltrator | 2006
Notes
- One of the "star warriors", a Han Solo, bears a passing resemblance to movie star Harold Edsel. Whether his co-star Karen Fishook also has a star warrior counterpart is unknown.
- It was partially owing to Hasbro's enormous product glut with their Star Wars: Episode I toyline that the Transtech line was scrapped.
- The Star Wars Transformers toys from 2006 through 2008 all feature little pilot mini-figures that sat in the toys' cockpits. Originally, this was done to make sure kids would not be confused and think that the giant robots were not piloted mecha but living robots like the Transformers. Starting with 2009's new Crossovers product, however, the pilot mini-figures were dropped from the toys, and the "carryover" older toys were packed with the pilot figures already in the cockpits. Hasbro cited this as being both a cost-saving measure (thanks to rising manufacturing costs) and a move born of their discovery through play-testing that kids really weren't getting "piloted mech" and "living robot" confused [1] (also the likely reason such figures were not included for the Marvel Comics Crossovers toys).
- In the final part of Revenge of the Fallen, R2-D2 was found flying.
References
- ↑ Hasbro Star Wars Q&A on ActionFigs.com, August 15th 2008